Record Rain fall in California means more mosquitoes
The Bay Area’s epic winter rainfall means that a certain pesky, blood-sucking summertime pest is having the time of its short life. (For males, that’s about a week — and that’s if they aren’t swatted sooner!)
“This year you’re going to see some pretty bad mosquito conditions — good conditions if you’re a mosquito, bad conditions if you’re a human being,” said Kaitlyn Trudeau, senior research associate at Climate Central. “Mosquitos are awful. I’m not a fan.”
In the short term, lots of rain and snow means plentiful puddles, marshes, ponds and other opportunities for mosquitoes to lay their eggs and reproduce rapidly.
But there’s a long-term trend playing out, and it has to do with warming temperatures — and it’s bad news for any San Franciscan with bare ankles and plans for an outdoor picnic.
Trudeau and her research colleagues looked closely at mosquito activity trends between 1979 and 2022 at 242 locations across the U.S. They found that rising summertime temperatures are affecting mosquitoes all over the place.
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