Microseason 21 of 72 · April 11–15
Magnolias bloom and fall in a day
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
Magnolias bloom and fall in a day
Saucer magnolias open gloriously, then brown in a single frost.
- SESoutheast Subtropical
Magnolia blooms and falls in a breath
Southern magnolia opens its waxy, creamy flowers—then petals scatter within days. Fragrance lingers in humid air.
- PNWPacific Northwest
Geese Turn Their Faces North
Canada geese depart for breeding grounds in the far north; flocks V out of Puget Sound in the early morning. Spring peepers call from ponds at dusk.
- CACalifornia Mediterranean
Allen's hummingbirds in courtship dives
Allen's hummingbirds perform high-speed diving displays, their gorget flashing iridescent. Ceanothus blooms attract them to chaparral edges.
- MWMountain West
Sandhill cranes call through the wetlands
Migrating sandhill cranes flood the Bosque del Apache, Platte River, and Monte Vista as spring wetlands fill. Swainson's hawks return.
- MPPlains Continental
Wild Geese Wing North in Massive Flocks
Canada geese and snow geese pass overhead in dense V-formations, honking migration calls through cool spring nights.
- SWSouthwest Desert
Heat dome settles in hard
Daytime highs exceed 100°F; evaporation steals moisture; landscape dries.
- TRTropical / Sub-Tropical
Green deepens in all things
The forest canopy thickens visibly as every tree puts on new leaf. Humidity soars; afternoon showers fall nearly every day.
- AKAlaska Subarctic
Waterfowl surge northward
Pacific loons, Arctic loons, and Aleutian terns arrive; the sky fills with migration. Interior lakes still frozen; coastal bays opening.
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.