2024 is a Big Year For Cicadas, But Not So Much in Connecticut

Have you heard that over two trillion cicadas may possibly emerge during this coming Summer of 2024? Time Magazine quotes a UConn study which projects that some US states will be in for an invasion, the size of which hasn't been seen in over 200 years. Are we going to see it happen in Connecticut? Not this year.

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The last time that Connecticut had a 17-year cicada emergence was in 2013, according to the Peabody Museum at Yale University. The next Brood X emergence in Connecticut will not happen again until the Summer of 2030. Here's a video I found on YouTube that The Day posted in 2013.

The Summertime buzz of the cicadas was so much more a part of my life when I lived in the Midwest, I did hear them during the dog days of August here in Connecticut over the decades, but it overwhelms your senses when there are millions of them buzzing at once.

The photo you see above was pretty typical on a hot day in July, most of the neighborhood homes had brick exteriors, and you would wake up to dozens of empty brown cicada 'shells', after they had transformed into the red-eyed, bright yellow winged noise-makers. Cicadas are harmless, they don't bite, sting, or destroy trees, plants. They avoid humans and pets, and they're very slow, especially if they've just transformed. We used to easily catch them, pick them up, and chase the kids who were scared of them around the playground.