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While this season's weather is not totally unreliable, you can caount on the same consterllation every year.
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SEASONS
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Sure-fire ways to tell that springtime is near.
By Fred Schaaf
If you're dreaming of warmer weather, outdoor walks, and
starting up your outdoor garden again, you're not alone.
Most of us are anxiously waiting for the return of the
robin--herald of spring. In fact, Americans get so hyped-up
for the upcoming season that we have actually created a day
for trying to predict when spring will arrive (a.k.a.
Groundhog Day). Sure we still have the rest of winter to
endure, but we can pursue the subject of spring's
arrival--in the calendar, the weather, the living world,
the heavens, and the holidays.
Seasons and Calendar
Technically, spring begins in the Northern Hemisphere when
the sun moves northward enough to pass overhead as seen
from Earth's equator. We call this point-and the sun's
reaching of it-the spring, or vernal equinox.
(Equinox means "equal night," referring to the fact that
day and night are equal in length at this time of year.) It
is also at spring equinox (and autumn equinox) that people
all over the world can see the sun rise exactly due east
and set exactly due west.
The first day of spring always falls on one of two days:
March 20 or 21. This year, 0you can celebrate on March 20
at 9:42 A.m., Eastern Standard Time. Will that be the
moment when we feel warmer, see a burst of green around us,
smell flowers leaping into bloom? Doubtful. As Henry Van
Dyke put it in Fisherman's Luck, "The first day of
spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another.
The difference between them is sometimes as great as a
month." Also, a first spring day is generally followed by a
few cold snaps and a return to winter, a kind of reversed
Indian Summer. On March 7, 1855, Henry David Thoreau noted
in his journal: "The first pleasant days of spring come out
like a squirrel and go in again."
In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb
Most of us have learned to expect nothing from March except
the unexpected. We should be well aware that weather in
this month is a throw of the dice, a total gamble. In fact,
March is appropriately named for the Roman war god, Mars,
since no other month brings such a war between warm and
cold, between winter's refusal to leave and spring's
insistence on coming. If March 1 is a peaceful, almost
balmy day, you can be relatively sure that March 31 will be
stormy and cold.
Most people tend to recall the spectacular; in weather,
this means storms. The frequency of tornadoes takes a leap
up in March, most of them occurring well south in the Gulf
states. Some parts of the country may experience violent
thunderstorms, followed by blizzards or ice storms. I
recall that March of 1989 in our town was a month of flu,
4" of sleet on the ground, tornado watches, and one of the
most spectacular Northern Lights displays of our lives-all
these happenings violent or eerie, unsettling and potent,
and sometimes occuring with great beauty, as in the case of
the Northern Lights. March has been the month of the most
devastating tornado and the most famous blizzard ever (see
"Almanac Timetable").
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