I was really disappointed by this article on WEAU.com, which followed the headline “Mosquito population in Western Wisconsin expected to explode.” I totally thought all of our mosquitoes were a-gonna s’plode! I thought we were going to see millions of tiny fireballs exploding one night as Wisconsin's entire mosquito population was simultaneously wiped out. Sadly, while there’s more than enough fireball news exploding from WEAU today, this was not the case. It actually means we’re getting more mosquitoes:

• “We haven't had a real wet June or July for a while now so I’m thinking we’re gonna have a lot of insects, a lot of mosquitoes out flying around,” Kelly Murray, a biologist lecturer at UW-Eau Claire says.
• Murray says the wet weather Western Wisconsin has received over the past few weeks has created perfect conditions for mosquitoes to breed and for dormant eggs, to hatch.
• “They can be in the soil as eggs for several years that just lay dormant, and then when it floods, you can get hundreds within that square foot of soil emerging per day, as long as it’s wet,” Murray explains.

Hundreds of mosquitoes hatching and emerging from a square foot of mud. At least I know what visuals this evening’s nightmare will feature.