Atlanta's Mosquito Season and the Asian Tiger Mosquito

Updated 2026-10 · Atlanta, GA

A black-and-white striped mosquito on human skin

A season measured in months

UGA's mosquito specialists note that mosquitoes develop through most of the year in Georgia. In practice, Atlanta yards are bad from spring, once nights stay warm, until cool weather in fall, and a warm stretch in either direction stretches it. The Asian tiger mosquito survives winter as eggs stuck to the inside walls of containers, which is why the first warm rains produce mosquitoes so quickly from the same flowerpots and buckets as last year.

Two mosquitoes, two problems

Asian tiger mosquito: the daytime biter

Black with white stripes, small, and active in daylight, especially early morning and late afternoon. It breeds in containers: saucers, buckets, toys, tarps, tyres, gutters, tree holes. It flies only about a hundred yards, so it is largely a home-grown problem, and in summer heat it can go from egg to biting adult in about a week.

Culex: the evening and night biter

Brown, plainer, active from dusk. Culex mosquitoes breed in stagnant, nutrient-rich water such as storm drains, clogged ditches and neglected pools, and they are the main carriers of West Nile virus. They are why the counties run trap programmes.

What Fulton and DeKalb do

Fulton County's Board of Health traps and tests mosquitoes each season. When traps test positive for West Nile, the county has sprayed approved adulticides at night within a quarter mile of the site, weekly for at least four weeks. Positive traps have come from parks and schools across the city, including West End. DeKalb's Board of Health runs its own network of traps and places larvicide in standing water in affected areas. Both programmes target disease, and neither is designed to make one backyard comfortable.

What actually reduces mosquitoes in a yard

Tip and toss after every rain: empty anything holding water, however small.
Clear gutters and check the corrugated pipe at the bottom of downspouts, which holds water out of sight.
Change birdbath and pet water every few days; keep rain barrels screened.
Drill drain holes in tyre swings and recycling bins; store buckets and wheelbarrows upside down.
Treat water you cannot empty, such as an ornamental pond, with a larvicide made for it.

A monthly yard treatment of shady resting places then knocks down the adults that are left. Treatment without the clean-up loses ground every week; the clean-up without treatment can be enough on a sunny, open lot.

Call for a mosquito season quote. Say how big the yard is and how shaded, and a local company will price monthly visits for the months that matter.

Where to go next

Common questions

Why do I get bitten in the middle of the day?

That is the Asian tiger mosquito, which feeds in daylight. Most other local mosquitoes bite from dusk.

Do citronella candles or bug zappers help?

Not much. Zappers kill mostly other insects, and candles protect only a small area in still air. Removing breeding water does far more.

Will the county spray my street?

Only as part of a West Nile response near a positive trap. Contact your county Board of Health to report standing water on public property.