Attached below is the link to the thrips infestation predictor tool that you can use for your specific area.
https://climate.ncsu.edu/CottonTIP
Temperature and rainfall are the primary drivers influencing thrips populations. Potential differences could exist by location in your county. Be reminded that the closer you are to the planting date, the better the prediction will be.
Here is an example of what the graphs look like from when I ran it for the planting date of April 20th.
Thrips Predictor Model April 2019
This figure allows Predicted Thrips Injury Risk for the current year to be viewed in context of the previous five years, and the user’s prior experience. Predictions are provided as relative thrips injury risk expressed on both color and numerical scales (dark green or 0 = lowest risk; dark red or 1 = highest risk) for the selected location. Thrips injury risk levels are relativized across all years and dates shown. The date having the lowest risk during the six year period is designated by the darkest green and has a value of zero. Similarly, the date having the highest risk of thrips injury within the period is designated by the darkest red and has a value of one. All other dates shown have thrips injury risk values between zero and one, and colors ranging from red (high risk) to green (low risk).
The range of dates shown includes the number of dates (1) before and after the selected planting date and the interval between dates (5 days) that was selected prior to clicking submit. If a different planting date or range of planting dates is entered, the thrips injury risk profile will change to reflect differences in relative risk of thrips injury over this different range of potential planting dates.
Relative risk of thrips injury is shown for the selected location across all possible planting dates from April 1 through May 31 of the current year. Because the scale is relativized only within the current year, the predicted risk across potential planting dates always ranges from lowest (dark green) to highest (dark red), regardless of whether the current year’s risk is high or low relative to prior years. By considering both the relative risk predictions displayed in this figure and the risk predictions for the current year relative to the previous five years displayed in the preceding figure, the current year’s predicted risk can be placed in context of the preceding five years. This figure tells you how thrips injury risk changes across potential planting dates within the current year.
Keep in mind that even planting dates having low relative risk of thrips damage compared to other planting dates within the current year may have a high relative risk of damage if the current year’s overall risk of injury is high compared to other years. Similarly, even planting dates having the highest relative risk of thrips injury compared to other planting dates within the current year (this figure) may be at relatively low risk of injury if the current year’s overall risk of injury is low compared to other years (preceding figure).