Microseason 64 of 72 · November 16–20
Bare branches reveal the sky
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
Bare branches reveal the sky
Leaf-off — bird nests, architecture, and sky become visible.
- SESoutheast Subtropical
Bare Limbs Hold the Light
Deciduous trees in the Piedmont lose their last leaves, revealing the skeletal geometry of branches against deepening blue sky and clearing sight lines to distant ridges.
- PNWPacific Northwest
Bare branches open the winter sky
Deciduous canopy fully stripped. Cedar and fir silhouettes stark against pewter clouds. Clear nights reveal Orion climbing the south.
- CACalifornia Mediterranean
Coastal fog thickens as storms approach
Marine layer deepens inland; fog banks roll across bay areas at dawn and linger past noon; atmospheric river patterns intensify.
- MWMountain West
Bare ranges hold silence
Deciduous vegetation stripped bare reveals the full amplitude of the mountain forms — enormous granite peaks and snowbound ridges fill the view.
- MPPlains Continental
Open sky grows cold
Bare branches of cottonwood and cedar stand stark against pale winter sky. Thanksgiving week brings the first real cold snap to much of the region.
- SWSouthwest Desert
Saguaro stands naked
Saguaro skeletons frame the hardening landscape. Afternoon highs drop into the mid-60s. Clear nights expose countless stars.
- TRTropical / Sub-Tropical
The emerald deepens
Dry-season landscape emerges: greens intensify as water stress sharpens leaf color. Dust events from Africa begin arriving in the upper atmosphere.
- AKAlaska Subarctic
Rivers lock and silence falls
Major rivers complete freeze-up. Ice thickens daily. Water movement ceases. The landscape transforms from dynamic to locked.
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.