Cicada sightings increase ahead of mass emergence

Warmer weather has caused some of the insects to emerge earlier than expected.

Transcript

00:00Crawling on a tree in North Carolina are a few dozen of the billions of

00:05periodical cicadas emerging this spring. Warm weather has caused some of the

00:10insects to wake up earlier than expected. It really just depends on the

00:14temperature of the soil. So once that soil eight inches deep reaches 64

00:18degrees, you'll probably start to see the first emergence. When more cicadas

00:23emerge from underground, they'll be seen in at least a dozen states, mainly in the

00:28Midwest and Southeast. What's exciting this year is that there's two broods

00:32emerging. We have brood 19, which is a 13-year cicada, as well as brood 13,

00:40interestingly enough, which is a 17-year cicada. This event, where these two

00:45broods emerge at the same year, hasn't happened in 221 years. In Illinois, the

00:53two broods will overlap. So as you drive from the south end of Illinois all the

00:58way up to the north end, you're gonna be in cicada land. When they arrive, you'll

01:03quickly be able to tell. Cicadas make their presence known by singing. So it's

01:08the boys. The boys are the ones that sing, and the boys are singing to attract

01:13the females in to mate. They're also pretty harmless. They don't bite or sting.

01:18The one exception might be if you have small trees, so seedlings. Some people

01:24might choose, if you do have some very young trees, to cover them with some

01:29netting. After spending a few weeks above ground, they'll die off as the next

01:34generation gets ready to appear in 13 or 17 years. For AccuWeather, I'm Emmy

01:40Victor.