Matt Hutchinson understands that people might have been tempted, when the temperature plunged to 25 below zero in January, to console themselves with this heartwarming idea.

Maybe the arctic weather is killing mosquitoes.

Hutchinson, whose job is to control mosquitoes hereabouts, hates to disappoint.

But the likely reality, he said, is that the harsh winter might actually have helped rather than harmed the types of mosquitoes most likely to provoke us into muscle-straining frenzies of swatting.

“As much snow as we had, it gave a little bit of extra insulation to the ground,” said Hutchinson, who manages the Baker Valley Vector Control District.

Which is to say, those deep midwinter drifts served as blankets for mosquito larvae, a concept unlikely to rouse anybody’s maternal instincts.

Hutchinson was referring specifically to floodwater mosquitoes, the variety that’s most numerous in his district, a 200,000-acre area that includes most of Baker, Bowen and Keating valleys.

Floodwater mosquitoes lay their eggs in the summer and fall. Those eggs lie dormant all winter, waiting for the water and warmth of spring to propel them through the larval stages and into the winged pests of summer.

The district’s thousands of acres of flood-irrigated fields and pastures provide nearly ideal habitat for these mosquitoes.

Floodwater mosquitoes not only are prolific, Hutchinson said, but they tend to be more aggressive biters compared to some other species.

Although the frigid winter probably didn’t affect floodwater mosquitoes, the cooler-than-average spring has.

Most notably the cool weather and frequent rainfall delayed the start of widespread flood irrigation, Hutchinson said.

“That means the adults won’t be coming out quite as early,” he said.

Cooler temperatures also have an effect, because the warmer the air, and the warmer the water in which the larvae live, the faster they progress to the adult stage, Hutchinson said.

The cool spring was helpful to Hutchinson and his crew because, thanks to the ample winter snowpack that ended the drought, there’s a considerable amount of standing water in the area that could harbor floodwater mosquitoes this spring.

For the past month or so workers have been spreading a larvae-killing product in water sources, including aerial spraying, Hutchinson said.

See more in the May 31, 2017, issue of the Baker City Herald.