Love ’em or hate ’em, the cicadas are coming. 2025 will bring back Brood XIV, the largest of all 17-year periodical cicada broods.Cicada enthusiasts surely don’t mind the noisy creatures. But if you’re not an insect person, or you simply find the springtime buzz bothersome, you might be happier indoors if you live in one of 13 states.
Brood XIV is expected to pop up in Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia in the spring of 2025.
Gene Kritsky, founder of Cicada Safari, a group that crowdsources and reviews data on cicadas, told USAToday that some areas will get more of the critters than others, but the Southern states, like Georgia and South Carolina, will see the visitors first, around the third and fourth week of April. Ohio, Tennessee, and Western Virginia will start to see the insects in early May. Finally, they will emerge around mid-May in West Virginia, northern Kentucky, southern Ohio, Maryland, and Massachusetts.
“It takes about two full weeks for the great bulk of the cicadas to come out,” Kritsky said. “Once they start coming out at a specific location, that starts the clock. You’ll have cicadas at that location for the next six weeks.”
Kritsky noted there will be high numbers of cicadas in some areas. Still, last year was a busy (and buzzy) cicada year, too. According to the University of Connecticut’s research team, 13-year cicadas, Brood XIX, and 17-year cicadas, Brood XIII, both emerged. It was the first time they synced up since 1803, and it won’t happen again until 2037.
If you’re thinking that you’ve seen cicadas way more than once every 17 years, you’re not wrong. There are seven species of cicadas on different schedules. Four have 13-year cycles and three have 17-year cycles. Plus, most cicada species are annual, which means you can see them each and every year.
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