Written by Julia Ries for Healthline on April 4, 2019; Reprinted with permission.

Although spring has just begun, tick season is already well underway. The slew of wet weather seen across the country has ticks crawling out and about earlier than usual. Seeing as most ticks thrive in warm, moist weather, tick season will likely be especially tough this year, health officials predict.

“While regions across the country were either unseasonably cold or warm this past winter, there’s one factor that almost all of them had in common: excessive moisture,” Jim Fredericks, PhD, the chief entomologist for the National Pest Management Association (NPMA), said in the NPMA’s bi-annual Bug Barometer press release.

“From record-setting snow in parts of Texas and Arizona to excessive rain in the southeast, continued precipitation predicted for most of the country this upcoming season will allow pest populations to continue to thrive and multiply,” he said.

“While there are a multitude of tick species throughout the world, only a number of selected species bite and transmit disease to people. One of the most important and relevant ones is the tick that transmits Lyme disease,” Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, told Healthline.

Read more at HealthLine including:

  • What to expect this year
  • Where will Lyme disease cases increase
  • Tick activity on the rise year after year
  • How to protect yourself (and your family)

The bottom line

Thanks to unseasonably warm, wet weather seen across the country, tick season will be especially tough this year, say health experts. With record levels of Lyme disease and a new type of tick spotted across the United States, it’s important to understand and prevent tick bites.

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