[the_sleaze9]

I was just a kid just outside of the DC metro area in the country. I remember my dad and I had to stop the car on the side of the highway because the air was so dense with cicadas and the wipers weren't up to the task.

The noise when getting out and standing in that cloud was difficult to describe. It was so loud, all blended together and harmonized into this weird tone that you felt almost like a colored liquid. Completely surreal.

One of my favorite memories with my dad, looking back.

[chankstein38]

While I don't know that I've ever experienced a double brood, I've experienced plenty of cicada hatches in my life and this is probably the best way to describe the auditory experience that I've seen! I never know how to describe it to people who haven't been in it but that's a great way. It feels like you're almost swimming in the sound it's so intense. I once was driving along a highway during a brood and thought something was wrong with my car because of this awful sound that had just started, stopped at a rest stop, and was instantly immersed in cicada sound. It was wild!

[plasma_beam]

The massive DC/MD/VA ones are the 17 year Brood X and came out in 2021.

[ahi]

I was in DC in 2004 and it was incredible. The sidewalks were like a crunchy carpet. At times they drowned out rush hour traffic.

[CatWChainsaw]

The 2004 brood was far more memorable than the 2021 brood. 2004 was like you said. In 2021 there was only one place in my neighborhood where that level of noise happened.

[hedgehog]

I remember the telephone poles being covered and the crunching sound while driving slowly on a residential street.