Wet weather may mean more mosquitoes, ticks across Minnesota this summer
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Temperatures are gradually beginning their push toward summer. For many Minnesotans, it’s the payoff after enduring the long, in some cases record-snow winter.
But summer does come with some nuisances: mosquitos and ticks. And the above-normal snow and rainfall across much of Minnesota over the past few months may mean those nuisances are worse this summer, compared to recent years.
“For mosquitoes right now, it’s looking like we’re gonna see more than we had the past two years when we’ve been in drought conditions, just because as all the snow melts, there’s a lot of standing water around,” said Alex Carlson, public affairs manager for the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District, a government organization that covers the Twin Cities area, doing mosquito control and surveillance.
“The predictions are that we’re going to have at least a normal summer when it comes to precipitation. And what that’ll mean is that we’re back on track to a typical mosquito summer, with high numbers increasing through the warmer summer months,” Carlson said.
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Carlson said people can help reduce mosquito populations by making sure there’s not standing water in their yards, gutters or rain barrels.
His organization has researched where mosquito larvae are concentrated — and they’re conducting helicopter treatments of ponds and wetlands, to prevent larvae from becoming adults.
Meanwhile, Minnesotans are already beginning to see another warm-weather pest — ticks.
“The most concerning species is the deer tick because it can transmit Lyme disease as well as, I think, six other diseases here in Minnesota,” said Jonathan Oliver, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health’s Division of Environmental Health Sciences.
He said for ticks, it’s the weather to come — more so than the wet winter and spring — that’ll determine how bad the season is.
“Ticks do not thrive in dry weather in general, but they are pretty resilient creatures. And so as long as they have a humid retreat that they can access, they are able to survive,” Oliver said. “So it kind of depends on how weather goes forward this year, you know, more than the winter moisture.”
Oliver said if it isn’t dry, Minnesotans can expect to see more ticks out and about.
He said around 35 percent of deer ticks in Minnesota carry Lyme disease, so preventing bites in the first place is the best option.
Oliver advises that people wear insect repellent, do daily tick checks if they’ve been in areas where ticks live, and go to the doctor if you see a rash or develop flu-like symptoms after a tick bite.