Updated on 5/1/2024.
Periodical Cicadas (“Locusts”) of North America:
2024 is the big year in the U.S.A. Two Magicicada Broods, Brood XIII (Thirteen) and Brood XIX (Nineteen, aka the Great Southern Brood) will emerge in the United States. People call these cicadas “locusts”, but they are cicadas.
Get ready for a zillion of these (if you’re in the right location):
Here’s a chart that shows where Brood XIX and Brood XIII are in their emergence cycle:
Download an Excel of the Timeline.
about Brood XIX (WHICH HAS BEGUN TO EMERGE):
Brood XIX has a 13-year cycle, features four species, and is found in:
Alabama, north-west half of Arkansas, north-west Georgia, southeast Iowa, southern Illinois, south-west Indiana, western Kentucky, northern Louisiana, Maryland in St. Mary’s County, Missouri, Mississippi, central North Carolina, eastern Oklahoma, western South Carolina, Tennessee, eastern Virginia.
Big cities in the range of Brood XIX include Nashville (TN), Charlotte (NC), and St. Louis (MO), keeping in mind that they prefer the suburbs.
Read lots more about Brood XIX.
about Brood XIII:
Brood XIII has a 17-year cycle, features three species, and is found in:
Eastern Iowa, northern Illinois, Indiana, near Lake Michigan, and southern Wisconsin. Though likely extinct, the brood once appeared in Michigan along the border with Indiana.
The largest city in Brood XIII is Chicago, Illinois, and the Lake County Forest Preserve in the suburbs of Chicago is a good place to visit for tourists. The Michigan part of the brood is likely extinct, so do not look there if you are a tourist.
Read lots more about Brood XIII.
Will the broods overlap?
They do not overlap! But, they come close in some areas.
Both Brood XIX and XIII exist in Macon, Sangamon, Livingston, and Logan counties in Illinois. The easily accessible place they come closest to overlapping is Springfield, Illinois, which is in Sangamon County. Compare this Brood XIII map with this Brood XIX.
People wonder what would happen if members of the broods mate. Their offspring would likely live and adopt either a 13 or 17-year life cycle. This will likely not happen because they don’t overlap, however, one experiment would be to get similar species from XIX and XIII and put them in an enclosure to see if they will mate.
Resources to get you through 2024
- A Tale of Two Broods: The 2024 Emergence of Periodical Cicada Broods XIII and XIX book by Dr. Gene Kritsky.
- The Cicada Safari app for iOS and Android to find and report cicadas.
- The University of Connecticut Periodical Cicadas website.
- An iNaturalist project was set up to track them.
Stragglers from other broods:
Magicicada stragglers from other broods will emerge in small numbers.
So far Brood XXIII and Brood XIV stragglers have been reported!
Annually emerging cicada species of North America:
In the United States, annual cicada emergences will happen like they did in 2023, with few surprises. Cicadas in southern locations will emerge first, with Quesada gigas emerging early on. Look at the chart on the cicada sounds page for a calendar of annual cicada emergences.
The cicadas that have a camouflage appearance are Neotibicen, like Neotibicen linnei aka Linne’s Cicada, or Megatibicen, Megatibicen resh aka Resh Cicada, and they are annual cicadas.
A Neotibicen tibicen is perhaps the most common annual cicada in North America.
Proto-periodical cicadas of North America (the fly fisher’s friend):
Emergences of proto-periodical cicadas depend on multiple factors including the species, crowding, location, and cumulative rainfall, making it hard to predict when they will emerge. We can’t say exactly when they’ll emerge in your location. Platypedia species, in particular, represent a “boon” to fly fishers, as they send fish into a feeding frenzy. The best bet for Platypedia cicadas is to tune into iNaturalist from April to June.
A Platypedia cicada, photo by CGWiber.
International species — World Wide Cicadas
Generally speaking, cicadas in the Northern Hemisphere emerge somewhere between March and September, and in the Southern Hemisphere, somewhere between September and March. In places closer to the equator, like Ecuador, you can have cicadas for almost the entire year. You can use sites like iNaturalist and Cicada Mania to do research. iNaturalist compiles cicada identifications, including photos, sounds, and geographic data. Cicada Mania contains basic facts and historical and cultural knowledge.
There are periodical species of cicadas in Fiji and India. UPDATE! The “Leap-Year” brood of the Indian periodical cicada Chremistica ribhoi is currently emerging in the Kamrup District of Assam, India (4/25/2024).
iNaturalist by continent
- Africa
- Asia
- Europe
- North America (includes Central America)
- South America
on Cicada Mania by continent
You can also explore specific countries like…
iNaturalist by country:
on Cicada Mania by country:
More to come. Here is the 2023 Forecast.
What happened to the dates on the emergence cycle chart? I downloaded one yesterday here that was different (it had dates in the left column).
I love this site!
This is it.
Hi, thanks, if “This is it” is supposed to be a link, it doesn’t go anywhere. Or did you mean “This is it, it’s the only spreadsheet there is”?
It links to an Excel file.
Do they draw snakes?
Snakes will eat them, just like they will eat other insects, mice, moles, voles, bird chicks, frogs, salamanders, etc.
New snakes won’t show up just to eat them. It would be the same snakes that’s already living in your yard.
Sometimes people don’t realize they have snakes in their yard until they go out looking for cicadas at midnight and see them!
Looking forward to the dual emergence in 2024, in the eastern USA. We plan to travel north to Illinois to see both 13-&17-year species.
Since cicadas are found in most continents (not Antarctica, at least currently), where are they in the paleo-history since they apparently provide a subterranean bonanza for the surface-living biota?
I know geologists who study caliche (calcrete) frequently find cicada tunnels. Skye Cooley talks about it quite a bit.
What days should I plan to be in the Chicago area this spring? Putting together travel plans but narrowing down dates would be helpful.
It’s always hard to say because they emerge according to he weather.
They emerge when the soil 8″ below the ground gets to approximately 65F.
To get to that, it usually takes a few days of aboveground temperatures above 75. A warm rain can help get them warmed up and ready to go.
But if I had to guess:
For Brood XIII, the first cicadas will emerge in the middle of May. By the first week of June they should be active and noisy. By the middle of June they’ll be on their way out. Then in July-August their tiny eggs will begin the hatch.
For Brood XIII in 2007, I went the first week of June, and I got to see cicadas emerge from the ground, I saw some white eyed cicadas, and all the singing and flying too.
Are the cicadas eaten by birds?
Birds love to eat cicadas!
Re: “People wonder what would happen if members of the broods mate. Their offspring would likely live and adopt either a 13 or 17 year life cycle.”
Pretty must my guess too. If Teiji Sota is correct in his new hypothesis from 2022 published in Ecological Research (DOI: 10.1111/1440-1703.12354), hybrid offspring at the Illinois 13/17 contact zone would still emerge in either 13 or 17 years (mostly), but the offspring of a hybrid pair would likely be split into a (in body size) 17-year cohort on the small size body-wise and a larger-than-average 13-year cohort, because they would have developed with an intermediate growth rate, which would interact with the every-four-years developmental emergence gate that he proposes! He proposes that the only difference between the closely related species pairs (like septendecim and neotredecim) is their intrinsic growth rate.
As far as we are aware there is no location in central Illinois where these broods overlap. However, they do come within a few miles in some places so winds could transplant some across the corn fields separating the river drainages and cause hybrid matings. Extensive searching in previous decades has found no evidence of increased off-schedule emergence in that region.
I’m strickly a fly fisherman, one that ties his own flies. I live in Southern New Jersey, south/east of Phila PA. For the Brood X of a couple of years ago I tied a number of elaborate cicada flies in anticipation of the 17yr hatch…. but it never came here in Sou NJ. I did hear reports that some sections of PA and Northern NJ did get some. Not a one here! A disappointment….for the LMBass, SMBass, stripers,carp and ME that waited so long!
What (and when) hatches of other cicadas can I expect in NJ 2024? I’d like to know the varieties….I probably will have to tie new flies in a different color than the orange/black X ones that sit idle over my fly tying desk
Brood X was disappointing to me as well. I drove around Southern New Jersey in Salem and Camden counties and didn’t find any. My colleagues assure me they’re there, but likely in the most remote places.
Much of Southern New Jersey is overdeveloped, except for the Pinelands. You will not find cicadas in areas where warehouses and endless tracts of condominiums replace land with trees.
That said:
The small Hieroglyphic cicadas hatch in June and are common throughout the Pinelands and areas of SNJ with pine trees. They are smaller than Magicicada cicadas, but they have a similar body shape. So, their shape might be good for fish in areas where there are pines shading water.
Then in July, the Neotibicen cicadas and the huge Northern Dusk Singing Cicada emerge. These cicadas have a larger, barrel shape and they’re clumsy, so they’re probably ideal for bass or larger fish.
We found some in 2004 (23 May) in Salem County. Not amazing choruses but definitely established. The best sites were along Woodstown-Alloway Rd. between (unsurprisingly) Woodstown and Alloway. 😉 M. septendecim and M. septendecula.
Thank you Dave!
We had a fantastic Brood X hatch on one particular tailwater in East TN . It started mid May 2021 and lasted about a month. It took the Smallmouth about a week to really start keying in on them and then it was crazy good topwater bite for Smallmouth and big Carp . I hope we get to see more of it this year with the 13 and 17 combined. I need to start tying some
more foam patterns this winter for them, just in case!
My travel plans are booked for both broods!!
Good news!
This year I’m definitely going to try to capture one of those N. similaris from Central Louisiana. They shouldn’t be there, and I’m curious to see if there’s anything different about them. They are isolated by over 100 miles from any other populations of the species.