fly season, which is more or less centered around the month of June. However, it can extend into May, and we’re already starting to see more flies than we’d like to.
Some years are worse than others. We moved in the house in June, 2005; Mary still remembers freaking out when our white truck, parked outside of the carport, was covered in flies–yes, the front end and cab were covered. Can’t remember last year–I think it was worse than the two previous years, but 2005 stands out in both of our memories.
I don’t know why we have one month of fly problem. I know it’s not just here, but in David as well. Don’t know if Boquete and Volcán, which are much higher in elevation, have the same problem. Just that we do, and they’re starting to show up now. I can’t open the kitchen door without at least one fly moving right into the house.
The flies will come, they’ll peak, and then they’ll taper off. Just that each month or so seems to be Insect of The Month around here, and we’re coming up on Fly Month.
Filed under: insects
So when is skeeter month?
We set a temp record for May yesterday: 14 straight days of 100+ degrees. Today topped out at about 95 because a thimbleful of rain (hah) is forecast. From 1/1 to 5/19, we have had 1.6″ of rain. I don’t believe it.
July and August are our monsoon months, but even those have not produced much rain in the last ten years–Phoenix, with glass and pavement, has created a “heat island” which disperses the clouds. We have our own local global warming, and all our plants and trees and flowers are struggling.
Depends on which variety of skeeter you want to talk about. Coming up is dengue season; these mosquitos thrive on fresh water. Around here, dengue is pretty much an urban disease–they don’t do well in campo conditions.
Which doesn’t mean you can’t get dengue if you live as we do in a rural area. Last year was a bad year for dengue, and we go to David at least once a week. You can still get bitten by a mosquito in David!
My brother Al has commented about the monsoons in the area, but not recently.
Here, there’s no telling if there’s any global warming effect from anywhere because our weather is so wildly variable. Thank God for Ricardo Espinosa and his rain data. From those 16 years, you can see the variability. Statistically speaking, we can make comments, but you never know–one year can be unusually dry and the next year “normal” and the year after that something else, and that goes for individual months. This year, we’re having an unusually wet May, but it’s not outside experience. As of today, we’re averaging almost exactly an inch of rain a day, but you can see from the Espinosa data that there have been mays like that.
It’s very hard to tell here.
Joyce