First cicada sightings turned in for western Kentucky, southern Illinois

The thirteen-year cicada invasion is apparently getting underway in our local backyards.

In social media reports on Wednesday, a photo of a red-eyed visitor was posted at Kentucky Lake from Maggie's Jungle Golf. Another poster checked in that they saw one in Marion.

People using the cellphone app Cicada Safari added photos on Wednesday in Carbondale, Illinois; Hopkinsville, Kentucky; and Dover, Tennessee.

This follows sightings earlier in the week from southeast Missouri, as well as in Crofton, Madisonville, Nashville, St. Louis, and in Chicago where Brood XIII is emerging simultaneously. 

The Brood XIX emergence is keyed by soil temperatures reaching 64 degrees at a depth of 8 inches. Almost all of southern Illinois is in the brood's territory, as well as the western Kentucky counties of Carlisle, McCracken, Marshall, Trigg, and Union.

The invasion is reported at full strength in Georgia, Mississippi and the Carolinas, where the screeching of millions of mating males is "deafening."