Microseason 13 of 72 · March 1–5
Ice withdraws from the reservoir
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
Ice withdraws from the reservoir
The Central Park Reservoir clears — ducks return to open water.
- SESoutheast Subtropical
The green pulse awakens
Grass and trees bud explosively across the Southeast; tender shoots emerge from every dormant twig.
- PNWPacific Northwest
The Buds Emerge
Deciduous trees across the lowlands swell visibly. Big-leaf maple, red alder, and cottonwood show the first faint bronze and red of unfolding leaves.
- CACalifornia Mediterranean
Grass and trees bud and break
Valley oak catkins hang heavy; buckeye leaves now full. Grasses reach knee-height. Fog burns off by mid-morning most days. California poppy seed pods split, scattering seed.
- MWMountain West
Grass and trees stir from their sleep
Buds swell on aspen, cottonwood, and willow; green flushes the sagebrush flats; mule deer fawning begins in sheltered valleys.
- MPPlains Continental
Ice withdraws from the land
March arrives with warming winds; snow recedes from prairie and lakes across the plains.
- SWSouthwest Desert
Green reaches from the roots upward
March heat arrives—daytime 93-96°F. Wildflower bloom fading rapidly. Desert palettes shift from yellow and purple to deeper greens as new foliage expands.
- TRTropical / Sub-Tropical
Green thickens in every direction
March begins wet. Mangrove seedlings root in tidal mud. Understory herbaceous plants explode. Coqui frog chorus reaches peak—sound of wet season at full bloom.
- AKAlaska Subarctic
March breaks the ice's final hold
The first of three March weeks: coastal ice begins pulling away from shorelines; breakup season approaches.
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.