Epi Week #33 - 2016 General Statements

West Nile Virus continues to dominate this mosquito season, with 96 WNV+ mosquito pools reported so far. There are now 55 different municipalities in 7 different counties currently at a WNV risk of Moderate. This is only one more town than we had in all of 2015, when 8 counties were impacted over the entire season. In general, mosquito collections were lower this week than last week due to the decrease in collections of both Culex pipiens/restuans and Coquillettidia perturbans.

Weather

Drought conditions continued to expand this week, though the area of Extreme Drought (red) stayed much the same. We did see the expansion of the Moderate Drought area (orange) further into Bristol and Plymouth County and the northernmost tip of Barnstable County. Nantucket Island also finally succumbed to the lack of precipitation, entering Abnormally Dry status (yellow).

As you can see from the map below, there was scattered rainfall again this past week, but with the main accumulation occurring in Worcester County and areas immediately adjacent. Still nowhere near enough precipitation to alleviate drought conditions. While the third hurricane of the season, Hurricane Gaston, formed in the Atlantic, it has already been downgraded to a tropical storm, and forecast tracking shows it turning east well before it gets anywhere near the US coast. Tropical Storm Fiona appears to have petered out, and while there is another tropical disturbance near the Caribbean Islands that could become a named storm soon, it appears to be more of a threat to Florida and/or Texas.