El Niño Summer May Supercharge Mosquitoes Carrying Dengue Play

A very warm winter and the prospect of an El Niño summer with summertime rains has public health experts worried.

A new type of mosquito is breeding in the Santa Monica Mountains region. And last summer, for the first time, dengue fever appeared in Southern California with transmission by local mosquitoes.

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes arrived from Florida about six years ago. Insect control workers worry that the mosquitoes will swarm us due to an enormous El Niño that is going to send summertime thunderstorms our way.

Public health officials are now warning about the "unprecedented" local transmission of dengue. This year, complaints to local agencies tasked with controlling the pests have spiked. They bite during the daytime, usually at the ankles.

The record heat in March caused a record volume of people asking Ventura County mosquito control to come to their homes to get rid of mosquitoes. The arrival of warmer weather stokes concern eggs will be hatched and the biting season will heat up again.

One Ventura County mosquito expert says "there's just a ton of them waiting to hatch." Plus, the adult population was mostly dormant in April, but they are waking up.

Once again, the word is going out for people to clear away standing water from buckets, plant saucers and drainage channels. It only takes a drop of standing water for a mosquito to fly in, lay eggs and hatch thousands of babies.