Cicada Invasion 'Swarmageddon' Starting In North Carolina

States report first wave of impending invasion.

A cicada invasion that is expected to engulf much of the United States’ Atlantic seaboard over the next few weeks touched off this week in North Carolina. The “Swarmagaddon,” as some are calling it, will comprise billions of the bugs and will affect areas from North Carolina to Connecticut. Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania will also see their share of the bugs.

Brood II is one of the 15 cicada “broods” that are distributed across the eastern half of the United States. Every brood’s constituent bugs spend most of their lives in underground burrows, where they live off of plant roots.

But every 13 or 17 years—one or the other, depending on the brood—the entire brood lifts up to the surface to roost on above-ground bush and tree branches to finish off their lives in a massive mating season. Since Brood II last made its surface rush in 1996, its time is arrived.

The humming that we humans hear at all hours over the course of the cicada invasion, which carries on for several weeks, is the males singing to attract females. Some compare it to the sound of an oncoming subway train—a nuisance, by many people’s standards, but fortunately it’s the only harm to humans that cicadas really pose.

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