Mosquito season starts slow but may rise in coming days

FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) — It’s the start of summer, and as more people begin to head outdoors, mosquitoes are soon to follow.

“We’re seeing our typical floodwater mosquito, Aedes vexans, as an inland floodwater mosquitoes is the name of it. That’s the most common mosquito throughout most of North America and generally what we see after big heavy rainstorms,” said Ben Prather, Vector Control Director for Cass County.

So far this year, Cass County Vector Control has seen very few mosquitoes caught in their traps. While during their high points in the season, they can catch an average of four to five hundred in a single trap.

“This season is actually pretty slow. We are seeing a lot of dry conditions, and most of our sites are actually not very productive right now. We’ve kind of a rainfall pattern that really has not been conducive to a lot of mosquito breeding habitat. So that’s kind of good news for the general public is that we’re bored,” said Prather.

While the season has started off slower than previous years, Prather said, with July 4th around the corner, it is more than likely that those numbers will soon increase.

“With the conditions we have, we are going to see a little bit of a spike here, I think, coming up just from the rainfall from last week. But I don’t think it’s going to be anything that is going to be severe enough for us in Cass County to have to really warrant spraying, but that could change. Things turn really fast in a rain storm, thunderstorms, really kind of make the situation very dynamic,” said Prather.