With the solar eclipse in the rearview mirror and a beautiful weekend of weather in the Chicago area, it won’t be long until billions of cicadas engulf Illinois.
The historic event is driven by the simultaneous emergence of two periodical cicada broods, both 13-year and 17-year cicadas, also known as Brood XIX and Brood XIII.
And it could be just weeks away.
“We’re at the center of the explosion this year,” Allen Lawrance, associate curator of entomology at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago, said. “It’s pretty rare to have two broods — one of 17-year cicadas, one of 13-year cicadas — emerging at the same time in an area where they overlap a little bit.”
Brood XIII will emerge “all across Northern Illinois,” while Brood XIX will be in the southern part of the state, Lawrance said, with some parts of the state seeing both.
Here’s when we may start seeing the insects everywhere we go outside.
When will cicadas emerge?
Cicadas typically emerge in mid-to-late May and into June, as the ground begins to warm in the spring and early summer. A post from the National Weather Service said the emergence can often depend on soil temperature.
“Research shows that the particular night of the periodical cicadas’ emergence depends on soil temperature,” the post read. “Cicada juveniles, or nymphs, emerge after a rainstorm when the soil temperature at 8 inches in depth exceeds approximately 64°F.”
Climate change can also affect the timing and emergence. According to the NWS, climate change impacted a cicada emergence in 2017, when Washington D.C. saw “a partial emergence of Brood X a full four years earlier.”
In theory, warmer temperatures in Illinois leading up to summer could result in an earlier emergence, but “we’ll have to wait and see,” Lawrance said.
“Insects are cold blooded,” he said. “They develop quicker when it’s warmer and they develop slower when it’s cold.”
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Chicago officials issued an advisory last week, saying the first emergence is expected sometime around late April through early June, but the city might not see as much of an impact.
That means an emergence is likely between mid-May and early June, though some could start as early as late April.
For the Chicago area, Brood XIII will be most seen in parts of northern Illinois and Indiana, and possibly even in Wisconsin and Ohio, in late May 2024, Dr. Gene Kritsky, dean of Behavioral and Natural Sciences at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati said in a 2023 press release.
According to an article from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Extension, the Northern Illinois Brood’s emergence typically occurs in May and June, and lasts approximately four weeks.
“Adult cicadas will be active until mid- to late-June, but you will see evidence long after they are gone, including their wings, molts, and decomposing bodies,” cicada expert Catherine Dana, an affiliate with the Illinois Natural History Survey, told NBC Chicago.
Where will the two broods be seen?
The Northern Illinois Brood, or Brood XIII, will be most seen in parts of northern Illinois and Indiana, and possibly even in Wisconsin, Iowa and parts of Ohio. This brood will be the most prominent in the Chicago area for the upcoming emergence, experts say. But distribution will be patchy.
“Not every neighborhood is going to be as dense with them as others,” he said. “One area may be slightly more quiet, and you’ll hear them in the distance. And then you go to the next neighborhood, and it’s hoppin’, and they’re everywhere.”
There is one determining factor, however: If they were there before, they’ll be there again.
“So, which neighborhoods you would expect to find them in will depend on where they were last time they emerged,” Lawrance said. “If the soil had been completely dug up and replaced due to construction, there may be fewer…
This article was originally published by a www.nbcchicago.com . Read the Original article here. .