Mosquito Season Is Back
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Memorial Day marked the unofficial start to summer and it also kicked off the start to mosquito season.
"There's an awful lot of mosquito production in parts of the Twin Cities Metro area," said Mike McLean, communications coordinator, Metropolitan Mosquito Control District.
The MMCD averages a dozen calls for service on a typical day. On Tuesday, they took between 150 to 200 calls. The control district covers the seven county metro including Anoka, Hennepin, Ramsey, Dakota, Scott, Carver and Washington.
"We're seeing real significant mosquito numbers in the northern tier of the metro area," said Mike McLean, Communications Coordinator for the MMCD. "So, northern Anoka County, northern Washington County and kind of northern and western Hennepin County."
McLean says the recent rain fall has spurred growth, and with the addition of warm weather mosquitoes can go from an egg to an adult within a week.
"This brood that we're seeing now kind of represents the first of the summer mosquitoes," McLean said. "So we're kind of in that summer pattern now. And every time it rains that produces a new brood of mosquitoes."
They're encouraging Twin Cities residents to quickly drain standing water and get rid of old tires that are preferred breeding grounds for the pests. The MMCD hauls away between 20,000 to 30,000 tires in the metro area each year.
Since the beginning of May MMCD has treated more than 120,000 acres to keep the mosquitoes from hatching.