We report here on post-midnight uplifts near the magnetic equator. We present observational evidence from digital ionosondes in Brazil, a digisonde in Peru, and other measurements at the Jicamarca Radio Observatory that show that these uplifts occur fairly regularly in the post-midnight period, raising the ionosphere by tens of kilometers in the most mild events and by over a hundred kilometers in the most severe events. We show that in general the uplifts are not the result of a zonal electric field reversal, and demonstrate instead that the uplifts occur as the ionospheric response to a decreasing westward electric field in conjunction with sufficient recombination and plasma flux. The decreasing westward electric field may be caused by a change in the wind system related to the midnight pressure bulge, which is associated with the midnight temperature maximum. In order to agree with o...