Cicadas in Arlington: Time to Stop Looking?

If you haven’t seen cicadas in your neighborhood in Arlington yet, it may be time to stop looking.

“So far, Brood II sightings of the 17-year periodical cicada have been mostly south of Washington, with a few scattered reports to the north,” The Capital Weather Gang reported recently.

Very few people have reported seeing cicadas in Arlington County, and it appears that Arlington will not get the flood of cicadas it has seen with past 17-year broods. 

In a recent column in the Washington Post by John Kelly, entymologist Mike Raupp explained that these Brood II (Eastern Brood) cicadas "[tend] to be very patchily distributed. When people hear cicadas are going to be in Maryland, the assumption is they’re going to be everywhere, like last time. But they’re disjunct spatially. Where you have them one year, it’s rare to have them in the same place in the next brood.”

If you’re interested in seeing them, you have a few more weeks still to drive down I-95 South into Lake Ridge, Woodbridge and west toward Manassas. There are some near Centreville, or you could venture into St. Mary’s and Calvert counties in Maryland.

Feel like you’re missing out, but don’t feel like getting in the car? Here’s what our sister Patch sites down south and west of us have reported:

• Cicada Sounds 2013: The Whirring Brood
• Cicadas 2013: They're Everywhere! 
• Cicada 2013: Share Your Pictures

And here are a few additional resources for your family and friends who are in the midst of what some have called the swarmageddon: 

• Pet Safety During Cicada Season
• What to Do with Dead Cicadas
• The Art of Eating Cicadas
• 7 Reasons to Embrace the Cicada Swarmageddon 

Are you relieved? Are you disappointed? Let us know in the comments.