
Linking time-lapse camera data to phenology observations
Punxsutawney Phil predicts six more weeks of winter. We agree - if we're talking about the eastern US. The southeast especially has been cool so far this year. In the west, we are already seeing signs of early spring from trout to snowberries. A new forecast by collaborator Toby Ault also calls for a early spring in the west, late in the east.
By Groundhog day in 2017, spring had arrived 3-4 weeks early across much of the Southeast. This year, it looks like we will not see a very early spring in the Southeast. However, we predict that by Groundhog day this year, spring will have spread even further into Southwest states this year than last.
As of April 24, 2017, the National Phenology Database has reached 10 million records! Each record is a response to a question about phenology activity for a particular plant or animal species on a unique day and time, by a unique observer.
Read more about this milestone in this story in UA News.
Find out what 10 million records means:
March 20th is the Spring Equinox, which marks the official start of spring on your calendar. In 2017, the biological start of spring occurred much earlier than average in a large part of the Great Basin, Great Plains, Midwest, and mid-Atlantic. Spring also arrived 2-3 weeks early across much of the South, although it typically has arrived by March 20th and therefore is represented as "average conditions" on this map. In the Great Basin and central Great Plains, spring arrived even earlier than 2012, a recent year with a very early start to spring.