Can Mosquitoes Cope With the Speed of an Air Cooler Fan?

As we look for new and innovative ways to fend off mosquitoes, we don’t likely think about their speed as they fly through the air heading straight for our skin—but we should.

Since it has been proven and documented that mosquitoes are weak fliers and cannot fly faster than 1.5 miles per hour, and since air coolers have wind speeds of at least 10x that of a mosquito, air coolers can be used as a tool in combination with approved repellents and sprays in reducing exposure to mosquitoes and the Zika virus, as discussed here.

Fan-Generated Wind and Mosquitoes

Air coolers have powerful fan blowers, so if you sit in close proximity to the cooler, and you also wear mosquito repellent you are arming yourself with great protection against mosquitoes. In fact, an interesting study was done in 2003 in Central Michigan, in an area that is prone to mosquitoes. Although the study was not specifically about the role of the fan (or air cooler fan) in relation to the speed that mosquitoes fly , the researchers discovered that mosquito repellent combined with “fan-generated wind” did reduce mosquito bites.

One of the conclusions of the study was the need to reassess the correlation between the wind speed of a fan versus the flying speed of mosquitoes, since their findings revealed that this correlation was relevant.

Air coolers have powerful fan blowers that essentially produce “fan-generated wind” which is what the researchers recommend as an important part of reducing mosquito bites along with proper repellent: “We recommend that fan-generated wind should be pursued as a practical means of protecting humans or pets from mosquitoes in the backyard setting.”

So in addition to checking size, weight, power, color, style and price of an air cooler, you may want to add fan speed to that list.

Here a few models of air coolers that display the wind speed per hour, which greatly overpower the mosquito’s maximum speed of 1.5 miles her hour: