Microseason 5 of 72 · January 21–25
Springs begin to thaw
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
Springs begin to thaw
Groundwater stirs below the frost line.
- SESoutheast Subtropical
Late January thaw pulses
Warm afternoons may briefly nudge temperatures above 60°F; dogwood buds swell with the promise of spring.
- PNWPacific Northwest
Skunk Cabbage Wakens
Lysichiton americanus emerges through the muck in wetlands and seeps. The spadix generates heat; fog steams around each emerging bloom.
- CACalifornia Mediterranean
Spring green spreads inland
Valley floors turning emerald. Scattered storms continue. Sage and manzanita flower buds darken. First golden eagles spotted hunting in open grassland.
- MWMountain West
First signals of the soil's turning
Sap begins to move in lodgepole and ponderosa pines; beneath snow, pasqueflower buds swell on south slopes.
- MPPlains Continental
Deepest cold locks the prairie
Sub-zero overnight lows hold across the open plains; livestock cluster on south sides of windbreaks and rivers freeze bank to bank.
- SWSouthwest Desert
Buds swell beneath the hard sun
Daytime temps 75-78°F. Desert plants responding to lengthening light. Palo verde branches show faint yellow-gold budding. No frost expected.
- TRTropical / Sub-Tropical
Early-blooming aster brings gold
Late January—warmth holds. Royal poinciana and ceiba begin bud-break in earnest. Afternoon showers still rare but humidity peaks daily around 2pm.
- AKAlaska Subarctic
Stillness deepens in the cold
The coldest weeks of the year settle in; animal activity minimizes as metabolic demands intensify.
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.