This should be a good one, since we have people everywhere visiting this site. When does spring start for you? Surely you all have some interesting responses.
It sure felt like spring today. It was 56 degrees. Going to be a rough summer for forest fires with our lack of moisture.
In late February here the Skunk Cabbage flowers emerge from the ground (unless the snow is too deep). It is the beginning.....
Spring starts at the same time as zoo season starts for me: Late March/at Eastern. The period before (1. November until late March) I call the "period of suffer", because most zoo animals in my area (Central Europe) are kept indoors then and the weather is cold, grey and rainy.
I hear you. A temperate climate means the difference between our summer and winter isn't quite as stark as in colder regions and the transition isn't as noticeable. I do like when strawberries are in season though.
March -ish for me here in the UK - when the crocus and daffodils start to bloom and the trees start budding - spring has spring for me then!!
It already has here in Phoenix. It's not supposed to until mid March-ish, but when you have several days in a row with the temps in the 80s, it's Spring. We'll probably get one or two more cold snaps, but our winter is pretty much over. I worry, though, about the reptiles in captivity. I was told at a reptile sanctuary that cold makes reptiles tired and if they're out in the open, they could freeze to death and I know my supervisor, who has an adopted tortoise from fish & game (they still own the tortoise, but it's in my supervisor's posession and he takes care of it), gets worried when it gets warm too soon and Sherman comes out of hibernation. So far we've been lucky in that when it's gotten warm too soon and the reptiles start emerging, it hasn't gotten too cold again, but there's always that first time.
Sometimes it will get warm too early, and then freeze again or one notable year it waited until almost February to freeze up. In these cases plants woke up way too early and we ended up with a lot of dead plants. Also, I remember the infamous "winter that wasn't" which was really a disappointment for me because I like snow. Oh, and Spring starts when the Spring Peepers start peeping, the frogs start making noises I mean, which means that we will not have any more major snowstorms and that we can start planting stuff.
Michigan doesn't have spring. The four seasons we have in Michigan are Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter, and Road Repair.
Even though it technically starts around March 20th, I usually see it starting around last frost (which is April 9th or 10th for me) , as at this time, I Usually start preparing to start planting and Transplanting
I won't lie, the warm weather is pleasant, but if the forests burn it will smell like a campfire in town and outdoor recreation will be restricted.
Every when I see the first sliders - both in my garden and in the wild - I know spring is in the air !