Yes, high humidity helps mosquitoes survive longer, stay active for more hours of the day, and breed more successfully.
If you've lived in Houston for any length of time, you already know the mosquitoes are bad. What you might not know is that humidity is one of the biggest reasons why.
Mosquitoes are small insects, and they have a high surface-area-to-volume ratio. That means they lose moisture quickly. In dry air, they desiccate. Humidity keeps them alive for longer and lets them stay active during hours they’d otherwise need to retreat into vegetation. In Houston, summer humidity can regularly exceed 80%, allowing mosquitoes to remain active well beyond the usual dawn-and-dusk window.
When it comes to breeding, humidity makes life easier for mosquitoes. Many species lay eggs in damp soil or along the edges of water sources where humidity keeps them viable for longer. The hatching comes later, and with more eggs come yet more mosquitoes.
Houston is humid, hot, and has a lot of standing water thanks to bayous, drainage ditches, rainfall, and a flat landscape. That means Houston is just about the perfect place for mosquitoes to call home. Add to that the fact that some winters don’t have a hard frost that kills the population. Worse still, Houston is home to both Culex mosquitoes (the dusk-to-dawn biters that carry West Nile virus) and Aedes mosquitoes (the aggressive daytime biters, including the Asian tiger mosquito).
You can’t control the weather, but you can control what’s happening in your backyard. If you're tired of dealing with mosquitoes on your Houston property, Mosquito Squad of Houston can help. Mosquito Squad treats the vegetation, standing water areas, and perimeters of your yard, reducing the mosquito population by up to 90% for 21 days at a time, even in Houston's humidity.
