Mosquito Abatement is fortunate that the National Weather Service (NWS) and Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center office is immediately next door. This proximity has led to a valuable collaboration with meteorologists Jared Klein and David Schlotzhauer. Though we’ve known that the abundance of southern house mosquitoes was associated with drought conditions, precipitation data provided by the NWS is helping to understand why. The NWS utilizes doppler radar-indicated rainfall, rain gauge data, and forecaster expertise to provide daily estimates of precipitation at ~10 mi2 resolution across the Continental United States.
The importance of this relationship will grow as STPMAD aims to create real-time models to predict mosquito production for multiple species, as described in the STPMAD five-year strategic plan. Stay tuned for more updates on the relationships of mosquito populations with weather and other environmental variables as we learn them. Thanks to our next-door neighbors at the NWS for their service to our community and for the collaboration!