Mild Winter's Downside: Bugs Emerging Early In Maryland

COLLEGE PARK, MD — While February highs in the 70s are a treat for Maryland residents, and a great break from heating bills, the early taste of summer comes with a price, of sorts. From stink bugs to mosquitoes, the warm ground temperatures are waking up pests that should be dormant.

Frozen ground keeps stink bugs asleep in your attic, and keeps mosquitoes from invading the yard. But this hasn’t been a typical winter.

“Just like us, the bugs are simply loving this warm weather,” Mike Raupp, professor of entomology at the University of Maryland, told WTOP.

Raupp, also known as the Bug Guy, say the state needs winter — a real winter — with subfreezing temperatures to limit the numbers of kudzu bugs (which infest soybean fields), harlequin bugs (a garden pest) and stink bugs.

“We’ve got to go down into single digits before we’re going to kill stink bugs that are overwintering in unprotected places outdoors,” Raupp said.

He predicts the mosquito season will start early this year, too, which increases the odds of West Nile virus, and ticks could start the spread of Lyme disease earlier.

»SEE ALSO: Mosquito Invasion: Tips from Maryland's Bug Guy

Friday’s high temperature of 75 will be the warmest of the next seven days, says the National Weather Service, but there’s nothing in the forecast that is going to send pests back to the deep freeze. Daytime highs are expected to fluctuate from the low 40s to upper 60s, but nights will stay above freezing and there’s not a snowflake to be seen.

While insects could emerge earlier than normal, it’ s too soon to know if that will lead to more bugs in the summer, or if a late freeze will check the population, said Texas A&M Agrilife Entomologist Dr. Allen Knutson.

»Patch file photo of stink bug