WEATHER IDEAL FOR 6-LEGGED RESIDENTS.

Byline: David R. Baker and Lisa Van Proyen Daily News Staff Writers

It is a summer only a bug could love.

High temperatures and a sudden surge in humidity have the local insect population in pest heaven, following a spring practically designed to meet their mating needs.

If anything, Monday's combination of heat and drizzle throughout the San Fernando Valley, courtesy of the remnants of Tropical Storm Frank, suited them all the more.

Ants are everywhere. Anything that feeds on grass is having a field day. So are the spiders that eat other bugs.

All of this good bug news is bad people news. Humans who live or work near water now are dealing with flies and gnats that breed in stagnant pools.

``The gnats come in little clouds,'' said Jan Kuebler at the Traditional Equitation School, located next to the Los Angeles River near Griffith Park.

``Some nights it's like watching `The African Queen' - you know, the locust scene?''

The parade of infestations started with spring's heavy, lingering rain and probably will continue until fall. Already this year, Los Angeles County has endured a quick boom in the grasshopper population, followed by a plague of woolly ash aphids.

Although both have now tapered off, other bug explosions are taking their place.

Many of the phone calls to entomologist Gail Van Gordon's office at the county's department of health have concerned a tiny mite that normally attacks birds in their nests, sometimes migrating into human homes when the birds move on. This year, more of them are making their way into homes, where their bites can cause an allergic reaction in some people.

She also has taken complaints from Los Angeles residents who find their homes or gardens under attack from grass-munching bugs, which descend from the hills once wild grasses start to dry out.

``We have massive migrations from the natural areas into the landscaped areas,'' she said. ``I got a call this morning from someone who had a vegetable garden. Unfortunately, the bugs thought this was just ideal, and now the plants are just covered.''

Elsewhere, giant white flies have been found scattered throughout Los Angeles, prompting the county to release other insects that prey on them, said Rosser Garrison with the county Agricultural Commissioner's Office. Although not to be confused with the destructive ash white fly, giant white flies suck the sap from a wide range of plants, especially hibiscus.

County officials have even recently discovered a eucalyptus-loving, Australian pest that somehow appeared in El Monte and in the San Francisco Bay Area, possibly riding across the Pacific on imported nursery stock. Although scientists don't know exactly how it got here, El Nino probably isn't to blame.

Many of the insects causing the most irritation are regular residents of Los Angeles County, garden-variety bugs whose numbers are greater than normal.

Greg Cunningham and Tricia Brown kept waving their hands over a picnic table next to Lake Balboa on Monday as flies strafed their lunch.

Cunningham said they were worse than usual in the park. ``They're really bad right now. They keep trying to land on the food.''

In the San Fernando Valley on Monday, insects were not the only thing bugging residents. The 50 percent to 60 percent humidity levels, combined with sticky mid-90s temperatures made for flared tempers and bad hair days.

``The ones with curly hair are the ones who complain a lot. Their hair gets frizzy,'' said Peter Hom, owner of Petite Panache beauty salon in Glendale, which saw a scant amount of rain. ``There's no use in doing hair in this weather. They wait for the weather to get better.''

Portions of the San Fernando Valley saw traces of rainfall Monday, including along the Ventura Freeway near Sherman Oaks, but nothing measurable, said Bill Hoffer, a meteorological technician at the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

``I would say that through Wednesday look for discomfort levels to be a little bit high. Toward the end of the week, there should be less road rage out there,'' Hoffer said, adding that dry days are ahead, beginning today.

However, the mountains and deserts could have some thunderstorms, meteorologists said.

The August sprinkles are not so abnormal for Los Angeles, weather experts said, with 0.10 of an inch normally falling at the Civic Center. The Associated Press reported that July was the hottest month on record - almost half a degree hotter than the last record- setter - July 1997.