Spring officially begins on March 20 at 5:01 a.m., but Meteorological Spring runs from March 1 through May 31.
Our friends at Climate Central have crunched the numbers and determined that the Miami area is now, on average, three degrees warmer during those three months than it was during the spring of 1970.
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WATCH HEREThe study also says that "unusually warm spring days now happen more often." The Miami area specifically experiences 30 more above-normal days than it did in 1970. And we are not alone.
"Four out of every five cities now experience at least one more week of warmer-than-normal spring days than in the 1970s," the study goes on.
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But data shows that Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties, along with areas across the East Coast of Florida, aren't actually the warmest of the group, despite the three-degree increase in average temperatures.
Across the country, the vast majority of folks living along and east of the Mississippi River experience a warmer spring, but the most significant jump in temperatures continues to be in Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Texas, where average warming exceeds four degrees in spots.
In some cases, it's even closer to an additional five degrees.
Climate Central warns that spring warming can have a number of impacts, including:
- prolonging seasonal allergies
- worsening wildfire risk
- stressing western water supplies
- boosting disease-carrying pests
- lengthening growing seasons
- shifting planting zones that guide farmers and gardeners
