I Dread the Ruckus of Those Annoying Cicadas. Here's How I'm Dealing This Year

CNET ^ | 6/5/25 | Jen Karner

[hardspunned]

I was a teenager the first time I remember the cicadas engulfing Maryland. Big, noisy bugs with red eyes that were absolutely everywhere. They were in my grandparents pool, inside my best friend's truck, flying into windows and doors and invading everything with their incessant noise. The biggest problem with cicadas isn't their presence on the trees, it's the skull-throbbing noise they produce non-stop. Their constant buzz can be as loud as a chainsaw. As someone who gets overstimulated by too much noise, it's crucial to reach for a quality pair of noise-cancelling headphones to drown out the cacophonous racket.

We're in the thick of cicada season brood XIV (14) now -- from May through at least June, these noisy bugs will climb up from the ground and swarm in a number of eastern states before they mate, die off, and disappear only to emerge again years later. We won't see Brood XIV again, which is appearing this year, until 2037.

[madison10]

You sound stupid. The sounds are every year.
The hatching, not as often.

[red-dawg]

When I was a kid, our Dalmation walked into the house with one buzzing in his mouth.

[madison10]

They come out with sounds EVERY year, not just after 17 years. The hatching is every 17.

[Jamestown1630]

I don’t see how you could have been here in 1970 and 1987 without noticing the difference between the periodical cicadas and the regular ones we have every year. The former would drone very loudly all day, but not at night, as I recall.

(I didn’t find 2004 and 2021 as spectacular though.)

Maybe it depends on where exactly you live.

[madison10]

No, it is the same cicada.

[cyclotic]

Exactly. Different groups every few years. Hence you get them often.

I don’t waste much of my time teaching broods of insects as you apparently do.

[Jamestown1630]

They’re always more spectacular where there is a lot of vegetation, like Rock Creek Park.

Out here in the suburbs where I lived near a large wooded area, they were amazing.

[central_va]

You sound stupid. The sounds are every year. The hatching, not as often.

Listen for all of you dimwits, you only get to hear this cicada EVERY 17 YEARS. Get it? Are you all retarded? The sound they make is incredible.

"Cicadas can be loud because their membranes vibrate and create a buzzing, ticking, or whining sound. Scientists have concluded that a cicada makes a sound registering at 106.7 decibels, which is extremely loud for an insect."

This is what they look like, and the come in the millions per acre. It is a natural spectacle that actually lives up to the hype.

[frank ballenger]

Me, too.

Maybe watch the horror movies on Shock Theater, drink a little Ovaltine and go to bed with that sound outside.

George Noory (host of Coast to Coast am): “Growing up in the 60s we’d watch the great TV shows like the Twilight Zone and Leave It To Beaver with the family together. We didn’t worry about money-—that was for our parents. We didn’t really have a care in the world back then when we got ready for bed at night.”

[central_va]

Gosh you are being dumb. Get help.

[central_va]

Each 17 year cicada brood is in a different geographic area. You do realize that?

[Alas Babylon!]

Down South in Alabama, we have cicadas every year. In fact, I can hear them right now.

We have about ten species of annual cicadas and also get the periodic brood type.

I remember hearing the brood in Maryland and Virginia in 1987 when I was at the Pentagon, and it sounded like a spaceship pulsating, but down here they’re constantly buzzing all the time.

[Jamestown1630]

There appear to be seven periodical cicada species, with 13 or 17 year cycles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodical_cicadas#Life_cycle

[Georgia Girl 2]

Yes we mostly get the green ones.

[Jamestown1630]

'sounded like a spaceship pulsating'

That's exactly how they sound.

[Thank You Rush]

Don’t hear them at all - maybe they can’t OUTSING the Carolina Wrens that wake me up at the same time every morning and go on and on all day. I have excellent hearing and those birds drive me crazy.

Never heard them in CA - or OF them. Went to Prescott, AZ in 1996 scouting out retirement places - sat in a park downtown and couldn’t hear ourselves talk. First and last time I’ve ever heard them.

[painter]

Me neither. I find it soothing. 😉

Same here.

[AnAmericanMother]

My yellow Lab likes to catch them and keep them in her crate as pets. She doesn’t hurt them, but if they try to leave she follows them and takes them back. Puts them between her front paws and nuzzles them.

[vaskypilot]

I was in central Kentucky this week. The cicadas are out there.

[Fledermaus]

Several varieties. 13 year, 17 year, etc.