We’ve had that dry smoky air trapped over us for a while. Bugs love clean humid air so the summer insects haven’t been able to really thrive yet. Now that the smoke has moved out and the jet stream has once again changed we are getting a collision of moist warm air from the gulf colliding with cooler air making a relatively straight line over the Midwest. Perfect recipe for insect proliferation.

The little white ones? They are wooly aphids. They were around before the fires broke out, the smoke just makes them easier to see.