Denton County Postpones Aerial Spraying

Spraying to begin Friday because of wind

Denton County has pushed back the start of its aerial attack on West Nile virus.

Aerial spraying for mosquitoes was expected to start at 9 p.m. Thursday, but high winds will keep the planes grounded until Friday night.

"Mosquito control is incredibly weather-dependent," Clarke Mosquito spokeswoman Laura McGowan said. "We don't have rain, but we do have wind. And with winds the speeds that are predicted this evening -- we have been working closely with National Weather Service, and it does not look like we will be able to do operation this evening."

Wind speeds Thursday night are expected to gust above 20 mph and that is far above the acceptable threshold of 10 mph.

Clarke Mosquito, the company in charge of the county's aerial spraying operations, also conduced aerial spraying in Dallas County last week.

McGowan said the planes would remain parked at the Denton Municipal Airport on Thursday night. The company hopes to get planes off the runway Friday and Saturday nights.

"Unfortunately, Denton County seems to have daily occurrences with West Nile virus, so we want to move forward with that [aerial spraying]," Denton County Emergency Services spokesperson Jaime Moore said.

Moore said four planes would target the areas of the county that want to be included. For maximum effectiveness and accuracy, wind speeds need to remain below 10 mph or the spray could be carried outside of the target zone.

NBC 5's Frank Heinz contributed to this report.

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