Cicadas come out when the soil temperature is 65 degrees at 8 inches deep. I want a soil temperature watch. What is the temperature of the soil now?
There are several tools online that gives the current soil temperature for an area.
One of my favorite soil temperature tools is soiltemperature.app. You can enter in your zip code, town, or county and get the exact readings.
As an example, here is a screenshot of the reading from March 8, 2024 for Wheaton, IL
To get the current reading please use their website. Here are their report pages for several areas in Chicago:
- Chicago west suburbs – DuPage county 45 degrees
- Chicago north suburbs – Lake county 44 degrees
- Chicago northwest surburbs – McHenry county 44 degrees
- Chicago (Beverly south side) 45 degrees
If you scroll down the any of these pages, they give a forecast for the soil temperature in the next 6 days. For instance, six days from now, the soil will be 54 degrees.
And if you really want to geek out, the National Weather Service has a page with all the station readings
How does this compare historically? We have a tool for that too. You can compare this year’s soil readings to the past five years and past 10 years
Normally at this time of year, the soil would not be 45 degrees, it would be more like 38 degrees. We’ve had a warm spring.
I’m looking forward to the cicadas coming!
Another way to tell when the cicadas are close
Animals can hear the cicadas stirring underground, and will try to dig them up and eat them. If you see a bunch of holes around your lawn, that means dogs, raccoons, etc can hear the cicadas coming.
Cicadas have the best marketing people! Every year we hear that this year is going to be a big year for the cicadas.
This year, there’s been some hype about the double-brood. However, what they lack to say is that the two broods barely overlap. The only point of overlap is in Central Illinois. https://www.spudart.org/blog/the-double-cicada-invasion-in-2024-isnt-as-much-as-they-are-making-it-to-be/
Speaking of cicada marketing… in the last cicada invasion of 2007 I made some posters for the Cicada Olympics. They happen only once every 17 years!
https://www.spudart.org/blog/the-double-cicada-invasion-in-2024-isnt-as-much-as-they-are-making-it-to-be/
Come to think of it… what years do we have BOTH the Summer Olympics AND the cicadas? Let’s map out all the 17-year cicada invasions of the Midwest:
Thus, the ONLY other time the Brood XIII cicadas came during an Olympic year was 1956 Olympics.
The 1956 answer is interesting because cicadas are really prominent in Australia. “The cicada capital of the world”
Woah! https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsthisbug/comments/eawfo0/another_view_of_the_cicada_found_in_my_yard_in/
The comments on that post are funny. The bug is a green grocer, a species of cicada. Someone said, “I’m now imagining this guy with a small apron on, bagging lettuce in a store.”
Looking through one of the links on that reddit post, Australia has cicadas of all sorts of colors.
I couldn’t find any purple ones or red ones. Although, of course, they have red eyes.
Love cicadas and love this
Thanks, Tom! Every time I walk outside, I think about how they are underground, waiting to come out.