For those of us too impatient to wait for the vernal equinox, March 1 can be viewed as the first day of the meteorological spring.
Meteorologists generally define four seasons in many climatic areas: spring, summer, autumn (or fall) and winter. These are demarcated by the values of their average temperatures on a monthly basis, with each season lasting three months. The three warmest months are by definition summer, the three coldest months are winter, and the intervening gaps are spring and autumn. Spring, when defined in this manner, can start on different dates in different regions. In terms of complete months, in most North Temperate Zone locations, spring months are March, April and May although differences exist from country to country.At our latitude, unfortunately, the "botanical" spring is closer to the equinox. In the meantime, I'll need to be satisfied with this old photo taken at the UW Arboretum last April, which popped up on my rotating screensaver this morning. The tree is in the crabapple section of the arboretum, so it's probably a Malus of some type. I would have loved to have had this tree available to me for climbing when I was a child.
(click once for bigger, twice for too big)
Beautiful! Thanks for the shot of spring. : )
ReplyDeleteUm...there are OTHER people in the world you know...and the internet makes it possible for your posts to reach them.....so perhaps you could think about that....about who is reading your posts....MILLIONS of people ...people in South Africa, South America, Australia ...and people like ME, here in New Zealand.
ReplyDeleteIT IS NOT THE START OF SPRING HERE.
Here on the OTHER HALF of the world it is the start of autumn.
Please stop having a closed mind to what is obvious to the rest of us.
Thanks.
Sounds like it is going to be a very long, cold winter for you my friend.
DeleteOh good grief!Eternal winter, more like it.
DeleteIt's certainly spring here in Shrophsire. We've been sowing marigolds and lobelia and tomorrow I'll get Years 5 and 6 to put in some potatoes and carrots.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I wish! Here in Atlantic Canada we're currently 'enjoying' a windy, very chilly fall of snow.
ReplyDeleteMarch 1st is also Saint David's day, which I read somewhere has a correlation to Daffodils... (ancient Welsh for David's Day perhaps?) You should research that and blog on it!
ReplyDeleteThink spring...
ReplyDeletefeel winter.
I can haz Spring like that naow? Kthxbai.
ReplyDeleteI feel spring coming on - it's about 30c warmer now than 3 weeks ago. But it's not here yet. Last year Spring was amazing, the warmest and driest in 100 years (followed closely by the wettest summer in 100 years) and I for one am looking forward to a repeat performance, with late afternoons and evenings in the park drinking wine and chatting with friends.
Here in Australia, the seasons conventionally begin on the 1st of December, March, June, and September for Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring respectively. I remember as a child finding it hilarious that people elsewhere in the world would put it on such a funny date as the 21st, how silly =P
ReplyDeleteOf course, it IS just a matter of convention. The seasons themselves are arbitrary anyway, we could by a different turn of fate have ended up with any number of them.
I celebrate spring on Feb. 2nd. Imbolc. All the signs are there, you just have to look VERY closely. At any rate it helps getting through Feb. which is the most difficult.
ReplyDeleteIt is spring in our area for sure, there are dead people and houses that are nothing but piles of matchsticks all around me.
This is entirely too late, but on March 1st there's an interesting celebration in Bulgaria: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martenitsa
ReplyDeleteThank you, anonymous person. I've bookmarked the link, with plans to blog it next March 1.
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