IEM Daily Feature
Wednesday, 13 March 2013

Did spring already start?

Posted: 13 Mar 2013 05:42 AM

After yet another snow storm and a day of blowing snow, many are hoping for spring! Has spring already come? The featured map presents the date that ends the coldest 91 day (one fourth of the year) period of the year based on NCDC climatology. If you use this metric to consider when "spring starts", the general pattern is for spring to arrive first over the west and progress eastward. Iowa's start date is shown to be the last week of February which means we are about on week three of spring already! Perhaps this is why spring seems so short as we go from winter into summer as snow storms are very common in Iowa for March, which is a spring month.

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Tags:   spring