Nebraska agriculture official Rich Reiman knows what a plague grasshoppers can be. Two summers ago, his house was caught in a swarm.

"They were so thick, they were eating holes through our screen doors," said Reiman, who lives along a golf course in the small town of Eagle, just outside the state capital of Lincoln.

This year, he's ready for the pesky insects: Munch-resistant metal screens now cover the windows.

Nebraska and other drought-stricken states to the west are bracing for a grasshopper infestation throughout this growing season. Much of the western two-thirds of the country - from southern California to western Wisconsin - need rain, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor run by the University of Nebraska.

"The theory is that grasshoppers are more prevalent during drought because you don't have as many parasites and insect diseases during hot, dry weather," said Jack Campbell, a University of Nebraska entomologist.

Cool, wet, spring weather, when grasshoppers are hatching, supposedly keeps the cold-blooded insects in check. They get sluggish, fail to feed and starve to death, Campbell said. That hasn't happened so far this season.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture map for 2004 shows almost all of western Nebraska seeing at least 15 grasshoppers per square yard. The map predicts similar numbers from central Texas into its panhandle and parts of Nevada, Montana, Oregon and South Dakota.

C.J. Mucklow, Extension Service director for Routt County, Colo., is predicting a more severe grasshopper problem this summer than the state has seen the last two years - and those years were no picnic.

"We had some areas that had as many as 360 grasshoppers in one square yard," Mucklow said. "Anything over 40 is considered severe."