Going off the calendar, today is the first day of spring, but nature just goes off the weather. For The Washington Post, Harry Stevens mapped the early and late arrival of spring leaves across the country:
This year’s winter weather pattern cleaved the country in half. As a ridge of high atmospheric pressure warmed the east, a low pressure system kept conditions cooler and wetter than usual across the west, said Michael A. Crimmins, a climate science professor at the University of Arizona.
It’s like Punxsutawney Phil has no actual bearing on the arrival of spring.
