I read an interesting passage in a SoraNews24 article published last month titled Summer in Japan doesn’t feel like a Japanese summer this year, many are saying. The passage reads as follows:
Ordinarily, mid-June is the start of a two-to-three-month period where if you spend more than a few minutes outside in a short-sleeved shirt, shorts, and/or open-toe footwear, you can expect to come home with fiercely itchy mosquito bits on any flesh that was exposed. This year, though, there’s been a lot less blood-sucking insect activity. Generally mosquitos are active when the temperature is in the range of 25 to 30 degrees Celsius (77 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit). Once temperatures get higher than that, even the mosquitoes don’t want to be out and about in the heat, and will take refuge in the shade of trees and other leafy foliage. With many parts of Japan reaching daytime highs in the mid-30s this summer, even once the sun goes down it’s often still too hot for mosquitoes to go buzzing around, making their absence from people’s notice a 24-hour situation.
When I read this article, New York City was in the midst of a heatwave with a string of days hitting, or clearing, 90 degrees. Note of course that this is a heatwave by New York standards, many in the southern United States are unlikely to be too impressed by it. I also note, as always, that hot and cold are merely states of mind.
Despite having a life-time of experience as mosquito-bait, I had not contributed blood to our annoying friends for some time. Right after I read the article, temperatures in my area dipped below 80 for a couple of days. Over those two days, I was mauled by mosquitoes on my lower legs. I am now convinced of the factual nature of the SoraNews24 mosquito fact. We have another stretch of days above 90. I hope that this will keep me safe, especially with all of the mosquito breeding grounds being enabled by my municipal government.