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The cicadas are so bad in the DC area that they’re showing up on radar

By Ian Oland

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June 7, 2021 6:42 pm

After spending the last 17 years underground, trillions of Brood X cicadas, living off sap from tree roots, have clawed their way out of the dirt and shed their exoskeletons to begin a month-long mating ritual. As they clutter on plants and trees (and sometimes my face), they make a loud cacophony of noise that sounds like this: AHHH-REEEEEEEEMMMMMMM! AHHH-REEEEEEEEMMMMMMM! AHHH-REEEEEEEEMMMMMMM!

In parts of the Maryland, Virginia, and DC area, cicadas are everywhere. They’re swarming so bad that they are now showing up on radar as rain.

As NBC 4 Washington’s Lauryn Ricketts explains, “the Hydrometeor Classification algorithm identifies this as biological in nature..so likely CICADAS being picked up by the radar beam.”

At 5:30 PM, the National Weather Service also picked up the cicadas on its radar.

Not only are these things prevalent, but they’re also loud as hell. I went out to measure their decibel level outside of my house in Frederick, MD this afternoon. First, here’s what they sounded like. Turn your comp or mobile device as loud as you can to fully experience this.

My app recorded them as loud as 90 db.

According to reader Cynthia, a Capitals crowd celebrating is 99-101 db.

Also, as an aside, my son is so much braver than I am.

These Brood-X cicadas will only be around until late June or early July. Once they finish mating (or fall upside down into a river or get stuck in a spider’s web or get eaten by a lorge bird) they will go to a better place. Cicada eggs will hatch on tree limbs and the newly-created nymphs will fall off the trees and onto the ground where they’ll burrow under the dirt. The process will begin again in nearly two decades.

Until then, that green stuff you see on the radar is not rain. But maybe bring an umbrella anyways.

Headline photo: Ian Oland/RMNB

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