Microseason 38 of 72 · July 6–10
Queen Anne's lace lines the roads
A five-day window of the year, read through nine North American climate regions.
Same week, nine climates
A microseason names a five-day window of the solar year. What that window actually looks like on the ground depends on where you are. Below, the same calendar window read through each of nine North American climate regions.
- NENortheast Continental
Queen Anne's lace lines the roads
Wild carrot blooms along roadsides and park edges.
- SESoutheast Subtropical
Thunderheads boil and break at dusk
Bermuda High dominates; afternoon convection builds daily, producing violent but brief thunderstorms by evening.
- PNWPacific Northwest
Peak Hummingbird Wars
Territorial males engage in dive-bomb chases across meadows. Females feed heavily at currant, manzanita, and sage flowers to fuel nesting.
- CACalifornia Mediterranean
Warm winds drive dryness inland
Offshore heating creates persistent southeasterly winds; fog-free mornings are rare; inland valleys exceed 100°F.
- MWMountain West
Wind builds through canyons
Warm dry air over peaks drives strong afternoon winds; dust devils common on sagebrush flats and high desert.
- MPPlains Continental
Warm wind sweeps the tallgrass
Heat and humidity intensify; tall prairie grasses reach full height (6-8 feet for big bluestem), creating dense cover for ground-nesting birds.
- SWSouthwest Desert
Verdant eruption
Desert blooms overnight. Ephemerals and perennials respond to the water surge. Brittlebush glows yellow; prickly pear flowers open. Saguaro fruit ripens to burgundy.
- TRTropical / Sub-Tropical
Warm breeze across the mangrove maze
Breeze from the southwest carries Saharan dust and heat. Visibility drops to 5 miles. Mangrove seedlings root in soft mud. Kingfishers dive.
- AKAlaska Subarctic
Berry season advances on ridges
Cloudberry, crowberry, and salmonberry ripen across alpine tundra and boreal forest margins in sustained warmth.
About the 72-microseason calendar
A microseason is a five-day window of the solar year — long enough to notice something change, short enough that the change is specific. The year holds seventy-two of them, six per month, ordered by what the natural world is doing rather than what the clock says. Almanac calendars like this are an old American habit, kept by farmers, gardeners, and birders for centuries; Weather Story collects them into a single reference.
Each microseason is read through nine North American climate regions. The phenological events that mark a five-day window vary with ecology — the strawberries that open in the Northeast might coincide with the first magnolias dropping in the Southeast and the salmonberry blossoms unfurling in the Pacific Northwest. Same week, nine ecologies, nine readings.