Good Question: When Is Minnesota's Mosquito Season?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Over the weekend, WCCO viewer Kaitlyn took photos of a mosquito buzzing around her Little Falls home. She wondered whether it was too early for the little bugs. So, when is Minnesota's mosquito season? Good Question.
"This time of year, there are holdovers from last year," says Mike McLean with the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District.
McLean says Kaitlyn's mosquito is an anopheles punctipennis. They slow down and hide out during the winter in wood piles, tree barks or underneath porches and generally don't generally bother people in the spring. Once the weather warms up, they start flying around again.
Most mosquitoes, though, die at the first hard frost in the fall and don't make it through winter. In the Twin Cities area, that's generally in October.
"The annoying mosquitoes starting coming in early to mid-May," says McLean.
The eggs can sense the longer days and start hatching in the water from April showers. The temperatures also start rising around that time. Mosquitoes prefer temperatures warmer than the low 50s.
According to a study from Climate Central, the mosquito season in Minnesota has been getting longer. In the Twin Cities area, it was 74 days in 1980 compared to 108 days now. In Duluth, it was 37 days in 1980 compared to 47 days now.
"We're hitting the mosquito season a little earlier and ending a little later and that presents challenges for trying to control them," says McLean.
