This summer in Ehime has been eerily quiet compared to years past. Usually, the moment the rainy season ends, the chorus of cicadas—especially the minmin-zemi and abura-zemi—bursts to life, filling the air with that unmistakable “summer is here!” soundtrack. But here we are, already heading into late July of 2025, and yet their voices are strangely absent. I was curious whether it was just me, but a quick scroll through the internet and social media revealed that many others across the region are echoing the same feeling: “Where have all the cicadas gone?” “Why is it so oddly silent this summer?”
After reading through expert opinions and fellow bloggers’ observations, a consensus emerges, the rare combination of an unusually short rainy season and an early, relentless heat wave seems to be the main culprit behind this year’s cicada drought. In 2025, the rainy season ended at breakneck speed—so quickly, in fact, that in my corner of Shikoku, we saw the earliest end to tsuyu (梅雨) in living memory. This meant that even after the official “end of the rains,” there was barely any precipitation, and the ground dried out rapidly while the heat soared.
Cicada nymphs, as it turns out, rely on subtle changes in soil temperature and humidity to know when it’s time to emerge. This year, the ground heated up far too quickly, and the soil became baked and hard, possibly robbing the nymphs of their usual cues. Some experts speculate that many simply missed their window to crawl out.
And if the cicadas did manage to make it to the surface, they faced yet another hurdle: the daily high temperatures, which have routinely soared above 35°C (95°F) since the end of the rainy season. As a result, the adult cicadas have been keeping a low profile during the hottest part of the day, only singing briefly in the early mornings or evenings when things are a bit cooler. I’ve seen some people mention that you can catch a few faint chirps around dawn or dusk, but those midday, wall-of-sound cicada symphonies I remember from childhood have all but vanished. Back then, the air used to tremble with their noise, the sound coming at you from every direction.
Of course, there are long-term issues too, urban development, pesticides, and herbicides likely play a role in gradually shrinking cicada populations, but for this summer, it’s clear that the timing mismatch and extreme weather were a one-two punch. This was simply a “perfect storm” for a silent summer.
Depending on the species, cicada nymphs can spend anywhere from a few years to up to seventeen years underground before finally emerging for their brief time in the sun. If this was the year they finally worked up the courage to come out, only to be thwarted by freak weather, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for them...
