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Here's why mosquitos have been so much worse this year

By and FOX 2 Staff
Updated  September 9, 2021 6:10pm EDT
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FOX 2 Detroit

It's not just you, the mosquitos really have been terrible this year

Why are the mosquitos so much worse this summer? Yes, the rain factored in but that's only part of it.

DETROIT (FOX 2) - It's not just you - mosquitoes really are much worse this year. While the 2021 summer has been much wetter than usual, that's only part of the problem. As it turns out, we're seeing more mosquitos this year than we see in most years.

Mark VanderWerp of Rose Pest Solutions confirms what we've all been saying at backyard BBQs this year: the mosquitos really are worse than usual. But he can actually explain why.

"We suffered multiple years of gobs of eggs all at once," VanderWerp said. "You had this mass of eggs, (it) may have been a couple of years worth, of mosquito eggs that hatched at once."

That's right. In one summer, we have been around as several years' worth of mosquitos have hatched. And the answer actually does have something to do with the rain.

"The simple answer is there are different kinds of mosquitos and some mosquitos really hatch out big time when you get a lot of rain, and we call those the summer floodwater mosquitos," VanderWerp said.

We knew this summer was wet - it was the 7th wettest summer ever in Metro Detroit. We received 5.16 inches of rain in June, 4.95 inches in July, and 5.17 inches in August. We average about 3.25-3.50 each month.

Because of all that water, it actually caused more eggs to hatch.

"What we really got slammed with this year was the species that lay their eggs in containers above the waterline. You're like what? Mosquitos lay their eggs in the water right? No, some of them don't, some of them lay them where the water is going to be in the future," VanderWerp said.

Well, that future came a lot faster because of the floodwaters. It reached the elevation where the mosquito eggs were lying dormant and the metaphorical pin was pulled, waking up the mosquitos.

"We almost certainly had eggs that were laid this year hatch as well as the year before and the year before," he said.

And even though the temperature has turned, don't let your guard down yet, VanderWerp said.

"I think we're gonna continue to see mosquitoes this year for at least another solid month here, well see. It's also weather dependent, as we start hitting lower temperatures, their gonna see their life cycle's gonna stretch way out and you're gonna see fewer and fewer of those," he said.