It was just a matter of time before the grasshoppers joined the party. In 2023, global crops have been devastated by plague after plague. Farmers in the U.S. and elsewhere have had to deal with seemingly endless drought, unprecedented heat, nightmarish flooding and horrifying outbreaks of disease. In fact, citrus greening disease is one of the primary reasons why the orange harvest in Florida is only going to be about half as large as it was last year. It has just been one thing after another for our farmers, but ravenous hordes of insects has been one plague that has been noticeably absent from the list. Unfortunately, that has now changed.
Just recently, a swarm of grasshoppers that was so enormous that it was actually spotted by weather radar systems descended upon Tooele, Utah…
A massive swarm of grasshoppers has invaded Tooele, Utah, causing significant damage to crops. The plague-like surge was captured by weather radar systems of the National Weather Service on the evening of June 21 as it headed northeast toward the Great Salt Lake.
Alex DeSmet, a meteorologist, told the Salt Lake Tribune that the unusual radar detection of the grasshoppers was associated with their distinctive non-uniform movement. Unlike weather events such as rain or snow, grasshopper swarms exhibit irregular patterns.
Normally, we don’t see swarms of this size in North America.
But the warmer and drier winters that we have witnessed in recent years have resulted in a population explosion of the little critters.
So now they have returned in extremely large numbers, and when they arrive on a farm they literally eat everything in sight…
Farmers in the region have been left devastated as the grasshoppers devoured their crops, leaving behind barren fields.
Michael Dow, a rancher in Tooele, shared his dismay. “Every bit of alfalfa that’s in my fields is gone. It was bare dirt within a matter of hours,” he said. Reports of insect-related troubles have been emerging from the area over the past few weeks.
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