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.
THIS is not rain, not ground clutter (the radar beam picking up objects close the radar site –which is in Loudoun County)…. the Hydrometeor Classification algorithm identifies this as biological in nature..so likely CICADAS being picked up by the radar beam… pic.twitter.com/zTLCzynz5D
— Lauryn Ricketts (@laurynricketts) June 7, 2021
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.
I can hear the cicadas through the walls, over my AC unit, and through my AirPods. This is how loud they are right now. pic.twitter.com/uA9iwaTPu7
— Ian Oland (@ianoland) June 7, 2021
My app recorded them as loud as 90 db.
The cicadas are a little less loud than Capitals fans cheering an Alex Ovechkin goal 🤯 pic.twitter.com/QLu7I13FJ4
— Ian Oland (@ianoland) June 7, 2021
According to reader Cynthia, a Capitals crowd celebrating is 99-101 db.
Just how loud are brood X cicadas? Took this phone app reading at my house. A crowd at @CapitalOneArena screaming to #UnleashtheFury at @Capitals games measures around 99-101. We’re really proud of ourselves when we hit 102. #ALLCAPS @WesJohnsonVoice @russianmachine pic.twitter.com/3qNet5DCvu
— Cynthia Adler (@Cynthia_Adler) June 1, 2021
Also, as an aside, my son is so much braver than I am.
Ethan’s braver than I am 😂 pic.twitter.com/8J1gt31DC5
— Ian Oland (@ianoland) June 7, 2021
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.
Wait for it pic.twitter.com/WRl5ZKqaPn
— Ian Oland (@ianoland) June 2, 2021
Until then, that green stuff you see on the radar is not rain. But maybe bring an umbrella anyways.
Headline photo: Ian Oland/RMNB
Russian Machine Never Breaks is not associated with the Washington Capitals; Monumental Sports, the NHL, or its properties. Not even a little bit.
All original content on russianmachineneverbreaks.com is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)– unless otherwise stated or superseded by another license. You are free to share, copy, and remix this content so long as it is attributed, done for noncommercial purposes, and done so under a license similar to this one.
Share On