Cicadas Aren't Expected Until Next Year in the Chicago Area, But Some Have Started Surfacing

Note: The video in the player above is from a previous report.

While you won't likely see swarms of cicadas this year, catching a glimpse of one of the winged, red-eyed bugs is a real possibility.

Some cicadas have already popped up across the Midwest and South this year, including in the Chicago area, according to Dr. Gene Kristy, dean of Behavioral and Natural Sciences at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati.

The periodical cicada brood, known as Brood XIII, isn't set to emerge across parts of northern Illinois and Indiana until late May of 2024. But this time around, it appears some can't wait.

“There are not a lot of cicadas emerging, and this year is not a full emergence of either brood,” Kritsy explained in a news release. “That will happen in 2024. But some are coming up early, so we are asking people to be on the lookout for cicadas in a number of states."

While the northern Illinois brood "has a reputation for the largest emergence of cicadas known anywhere," it won't be the only brood to keep an eye on next year.

If you thought you saw cicadas just a few years ago, you're correct; "Brood X" reappeared in 2021.

Brood XIX cicadas, meanwhile, are slated to emerge in the St. Louis area, as well as parts of Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. Some of those may have appeared early, as well.

In a year of full emergence, when the bugs surface, they likely begin mating, which is often met with the noise most associate with cicadas.

“Once those cicadas are out of the ground, it’s all about romance,” Mike Raupp, Professor Emeritus of Entomology at the University of Maryland, previously said.

Male cicadas can reach decibels similar to a lawn mower or passing jet, and their numbers will be large, but their life cycle is short, at just four to six weeks. Then, the adults die but leave behind a new generation. Those nymphs will live underground until the year 2038.

In 1956, entomologists reported as many as 311 "emergence holes" per square yard in a forested floodplain near Chicago, which experts say translated to 1.5 million cicadas per acre, according to the University of Illinois.

"When the cicadas start dying and dropping from the trees later in the spring, there are large numbers on the ground, and the odor from their rotting bodies is noticeable," U of I reports. "In 1990, there were reports from people in Chicago having to use snow shovels to clear their sidewalks of the dead cicadas."

Cicadas don’t bite or sting and pesticides will not work on periodical cicadas, experts say.