They Will Be Out Soon - Yep, Mosquitoes

14 April 2012
2:33 PM

Sunrise at	6:17 AM	in direction	65°	East-northeast
Sunset at	9:27 PM	in direction	296°	West-northwest

Duration of day: 15 hours, 9 minutes (6 minutes, 51 seconds longer than yesterday)

It looks as though we will not have a rapid deluge for the Interior's Break Up.  Each day, more ground is totally snow free - not so much in our yard yet, but the driveway does have dry patches.  And each day more ground is visible around trees in the yard as the living flora draw water to their roots.  Campus is almost entirely snow free and many hillsides and streets about town are bare.

I am seeing green, green grass shoots.  It is not much, but it's a start.

And, I saw my first insect this morning.  The early snow mosquito will be coming out of hibernation soon.  They are an almost comical member of their species.  Spawned as the last generation in the fall, they are far larger and slower than their late spring and mid-summer off-spring.  They fly slowly, like a lumbering World War II cargo plane, making them easy pickings for all interested in shortening their life span.  Insect eating birds who made it through the winter are rewarded by these winged giants while humans feel a sense of triumph at eliminating as many potential parents of summer pests as possible.

I say "almost comical" because despite these apparent deficiencies, every year, enough survive to produce a fine crop of early spring mosquito tormenters who are ravenous and determined.  They survive from spring to spring.  They are not necessarily the parents of the mid-summer strikers that drive us all crazy.  By July the voracious forays of that critter are diminishing around our lot, but May and June - whew!  It can be very rough outside.

Ned Rozell, of the Geophysical Institute here on the University of Alaska, Fairbanks campus, provides more details of this harbinger of summer days on the Alaska Dispatch website:  Alaska's Hibernating 'Snow Mosquitoes' Awaken to Chomp Soon.  We did have some serious cold this year, but the snow pack was high enough that possible temperatures stayed above -25F near the ground regions where insects snooze over winter.  I have no predictions for the numbers we will have this year, but I accept we will have mosquitoes soon and we will endure them, albeit unwillingly, as we do every year.