Microseason 12 of 72 · February 26–28
Skunk cabbage pushes through ice
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
Skunk cabbage pushes through ice
Thermogenic blooms generate heat, melting snow around them.
- SESoutheast Subtropical
Mist clings to greening valleys
Morning fog lingers longer over awakening swamps; kudzu vines break dormancy with first tender leaves.
- PNWPacific Northwest
Mist Begins to Linger
The haze becomes almost permanent. Fog no longer lifts fully by midday. The landscape dissolves into soft, layered depths.
- CACalifornia Mediterranean
Spring advances on cool winds
Mist lingers longer into mornings as temperatures oscillate. Grasses shoulder-high in best meadows. Toyon berries mostly consumed. Monarch migration northward now evident.
- MWMountain West
Mist gathers in the warming canyons
Warm air rises; mist and low clouds form in afternoon; ponderosa bark releases its vanilla scent in the sun; first insects emerge.
- MPPlains Continental
Winter's veil grows thin
The shortest month ends; mist rises from thawing prairie ground.
- SWSouthwest Desert
Late winter warmth intensifies
Daytime highs 90-93°F. Late winter drought deepens. Wildflower carpets beginning to fade unless sustained by minor moisture events.
- TRTropical / Sub-Tropical
Mist rises where rain falls inland
End of February—rainy season properly underway. Mist forms in afternoon valleys. Mangrove propagules drop in earnest. Understory ferns uncurl in dampness.
- AKAlaska Subarctic
Mist veils the landscape in transition
February closes with increased cloud cover; coastal fog presages the return of maritime moisture.
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.