Microseason 40 of 72 · July 16–20
Corn reaches for the tassels
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
Corn reaches for the tassels
Field corn tassels in NJ and Long Island farms.
- SESoutheast Subtropical
Cicadas claim the long noon
Dog-day cicadas reach peak chorus in the heaviest heat as red-shouldered hawk fledglings practice over Piedmont woodlots and field corn tassels gold above row-crop farms.
- PNWPacific Northwest
Smoke Season Beckons
Haze thickens on the eastern horizon. Interior forest fires build. Air quality dips in evening as distant smoke reaches the Willamette and Puget valleys.
- CACalifornia Mediterranean
Young hawks take to the thermals
Red-tailed and other raptors fledge; immature birds spiral upward on hot-air thermals over the valleys.
- MWMountain West
Elk herds claim alpine meadows
Elk move into highest elevation meadows to escape heat; large herds graze in subalpine parks and above-treeline tundra.
- MPPlains Continental
Corn tassels and reaches peak
Corn pollen sheds across the Corn Belt; tassels unfurl and silks emerge, triggering pollen allergies and marking the crop's reproductive peak.
- SWSouthwest Desert
Young raptors claim the thermal
Harris's hawk juveniles fledge; zone-tailed hawks hunt at peak intensity. Thermals carry them to 8,000+ feet. Predation increases on ground-nesting birds and small mammals.
- TRTropical / Sub-Tropical
Juvenile raptors test the thermals
Young frigatebirds and raptors spiral higher daily. Trade winds shift north. Pressure systems move faster. Peak hurricane season energy building.
- AKAlaska Subarctic
Gyrfalcon young fledge from cliffs
Young gyrfalcons and golden eagles leave cliff nests to hunt on tundra; raptors at peak predatory activity over summer ranges.
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.