Here’s how close Brood 19 cicadas are coming to NJ this spring

Perhaps you’ve heard of the dreaded double brood cicada invasion. You see, cicadas come in different groupings with different emergence cycles. Once in a while parts of the country with more than one brood beneath the soil line up to emerge at the same time.

When that happens, it’s a cacophonous nightmare. The sound can be constant. The carpet of cicadas across lawns and driveways can be inescapable to crunch-walk your way through. They say it’s hell.

We’re not in that situation in New Jersey. In fact, we’re not worrying about even a single emergence this year. There’s a Brood 14 classification of cicadas that doesn’t hit west-central New Jersey until spring of next year.

But there’s a huge number of Brood 19 cicadas that are getting ready to emerge in just a few months. Spring of 2024 will see an invasion in a huge swath of the nation that encompasses 16 states.

How close will this come to New Jersey?

Very.

Brood 19 will come creeping out of the ground like “Night Of The Living Dead” zombies in Maryland. According to an interactive map on nj.com the bulk of Maryland’s cicada invasion will be in St. Mary’s County which is south of Baltimore and right on the water.

So the good news is we have that tiny sliver known as Delaware in between us. New Jersey should remain unaffected for now. Cicadas are noisy, but not as noisy as those boom car parties out of Philadelphia that send police on wild goose chases with noise and bass drifting across the Delaware River. You’re safe, for now.

But come spring of 2025 parts of New Jersey will be hit again. You could either spend the next year dreading it, or be productive and start looking up tasty cicada recipes. Yes, people have eaten cicadas. Heck, Kylie Moore and I once made a show of it.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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