WASHINGTON — Spring this year was unusually wet in the eastern half of the United States, with heavy rains falling from everywhere from Kansas and Missouri to New York City and Washington, D.C., the National Weather Service reported — and with those rains has come a bumper crop of mosquitoes. According to Jeannine Dorothy, a Maryland state entomologist, the wetter than usual spring means more mosquito eggs — and more of the adult critters to swat. ‘Our traps have probably been ten times above normal,’ Dorothy said. Where overnight traps might normally catch 80 or so mosquitoes, Dorothy said, she and her colleagues were seeing 1,000 or more bugs in their traps in July. Their observations predict an itchy end to summer. What’s the best way to swat those pesky skeeters? According to Jim Brasseur, a fluid dynamics professor at Penn State University, the best approach is to clap or slap from both sides - rather than a swat from one side only. Just as a hand passed quickly through a tank of water will force the water to move around it, a hand swept through the air towards a mosquito will push a column […]