SOUTH JORDAN, Utah — Britton Cochran has been bitten by mosquitoes this year — multiple times.
“I have to take bug spray pretty much wherever I go,” Cochran said, as she stood beside a lake in the Daybreak community on Independence Day.
It was no day off for Dan McBride, the assistant director of the South Salt Lake Valley Mosquito Abatement District.
“I can’t justify not working on the Fourth of July right now,” he said.
McBride said he and technicians working for the district are finding about 10 times the number of mosquitoes they expect to find this time of year. They are also receiving calls from the public, he said, saying they are seeing mosquitoes in places they haven’t been before and asking what’s going on.
“It is the perfect storm,” McBride explained. “We had a really healthy winter with the amount of snowpack that we had.
“We had cool daytime temperatures throughout the spring.
“We had evening showers and then we had a warm-up.”
McBride says no mosquitoes in his district have tested positive for West Nile Virus this year. He still recommends long sleeves or repellent to prevent bites. And dumping standing water to prevent mosquitoes from breeding in it.
“Even just checking on things like an upturned Frisbee, seeing if there’s even like a half inch of water. All those things are going to produce mosquitoes.”
