Now that northern Nevada is out of the latest drought, experts say drivers will be running into a lot more gnats and midges than usual.
Jeff Knight, the state entomologist with the Nevada Department of Agriculture, says on routes near water, several species will be more active in 2017.
"A number of these areas that haven't seen water, have grown a lot of grass and vegetation, and now that it's wet, it's decaying and especially the midges that reproduce in that and sometimes you can get into the pretty heavy numbers," says Knight.
Knight says green stink bugs and false chinch bugs will also begin to develop on weeds growing in heavy moisture. When the plants dry out, the bugs will then start moving onto residential properties.
Knight says the two species don't bite and are only a nuisance, so they aren't a concern like mosquitoes or Mormon crickets which may have been spotted already in Winnemucca.
"We're going to go check that population out and see how big it is and determine if it's something that we need to deal with," says Knight.
The folks at All About Pest Control in Fernley say more bugs are a result of a wet winter.
Ken Rondy, says all the water has brought more weeds which bugs will gravitate to.
"They'll come up from the roots of the weeds and a lot of time they'll come right up under the house,” says Rondy.
This year Rondy says the bugs have made their presence known in March and April, a few months earlier than expected. To keep them away from homes, Rondy sprays a pesticide around properties, and knocks down spider webs from shingles. He also expects to receive more calls in the coming months than he's used to.
"This is just the start of my busy season; we're going to get a lot busier this summer," says Rondy.
