“Spring is just around the corner,” they say. “They” being the National Weather Service. The corner being March 1, when meteorological winter is over and meteorological spring begins.
Bob Kalish observes life from a placid place on the island of Arrowsic (motto: You’re not in Georgetown yet). You can reach him at bobkalish@gmail.com.
Spring is the worst season in New England and despite T.S. Eliot’s admonishment about April being the cruelest month, in New England March gives it a run for its money. I mean, what can you do in March except keep track of Presidential falsehoods.
Adding to the confusion, does spring begin at 11:55 p.m. March 19 or does it begin on March 1, a good three weeks before? There are two ways we see this change of seasons. One way is to note where the sun and moon and earth are. That’s astronomy. The earth revolves around the sun. The earth is tilted and it wobbles and so the actual time when the sun is directly over the equator is when the sun seems to pause and then slowly traverses the other hemisphere. That’s how we get our four seasons, through the movement of sun, moon and earth through space.
However, keeping records straight and recording global weather requires a more concrete way, and that’s why the National Weather Service in the U.S. and internationally use the meteorological method, which defines the season by average relative temperatures. The 12 weeks when average temperatures are warmest is summer, the rest is all based on temperatures during those 12 weeks. Easier to explain data that matches the calendar.
So if you go online to weather.gov and call up the forecast for summer, you’ll get a reading of June, July and August.
So when does spring really begin? Two answers: According to the Farmer’s Almanac, spring begins when the sun reaches the equator at 11:55 p.m. on March 19. The second answer is, meteorologically it begins on March 1. For statistical reasons the weather world likes its numbers straight so they begin each season on the first of the month. So when the NWS puts out its three-month forecast for spring it covers the months of March, April and May. Summer begins June 1, autumn on Sept. 1 and winter Dec. 1. Doesn’t that make more sense than waiting for the sun to reach the equator?
But why depend on the calendar? Already there are signs of spring, if only we’d stop and see:
· The Woolwich Dairy Queen opened Feb. 2. Nothing like a DQ Blizzard during one of our spring Nor’easters.
· That same day was Super Bowl Sunday, when reports say the groundhog came out of his hole in time to see the half-time show, after which forecasters say the rodent was last seen headed on Route 80 towards Ohio.
· Reny’s just got in a boxcar full of bathing suits and year-old sunscreen.
· Our sump pump came to life for the first time since November.
· The ruts caused by all the abnormal amounts of rain and ice became so deep that you needed a hovercraft to skim over them.
· The Red Sox have started spring training without a superstar and without a permanent manager, and under suspicion of cheating. Have they forgotten about the Curse of the Bambino already? It might be a long baseball season.
· Potholes are growing faster than the coronavirus.
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