Summer is a long ways off. We know that April and even May in Minnesota can be a cruel on again, off again joke when it comes to weather.
Even so, believe it or not, it's time once again to take extra precautions when it comes to ticks and mosquitos.
Alex Carlson with the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District says that's especially with ticks, who are emerging right now.
"Those ticks overwinter and then they reemerge in the spring as nymphs," says Carlson. "And so, what we're predicting is this year might have a slightly higher infection rate for Lyme disease."
Carlson says deer ticks in particular could be bad after they saw increasing numbers of larval ticks carrying Lyme disease last fall.
"And that's actually the most dangerous stage," he says. "That's when they're poppy seed size, so really, really small. So they can attach for several days without being noticed, and that's when the diseases can get spread. Then they actually fall off and then they kind of wait until they re-emerge again in the fall as adults."
Deer ticks can carry Lyme disease which can cause serious health complications and, in rare cases, death in humans and pets.
As for mosquitos, we've already been seeing some with our recent warm spells and spraying will begin soon. And in the words of the MMCD, April showers bring May mosquitoes.
In fact the MMCD has a number of resources on their website that show things like where and when that spraying will occur. They even a 24/7 livestream of mosquito larvae floating in water - kind of.
"Well, so the larval cam was a little bit of an April Fool's joke that we sent out just, to kind of play off the eagle cam and the zoo cams and stuff like that," Carlson jokes.
That entomologist humor.
"We're predicting is this year might have a slightly higher infection rate for Lyme disease"
"We're predicting is this year might have a slightly higher infection rate for Lyme disease"
