The Month of March

The month of March includes meteorological spring and astronomical spring, the auroras, and the Death Valley superbloom.

Spring

Meteorological spring starts on March 1 and runs through May 31 every year. Astronomical spring, the spring equinox, starts March 20th. The best viewing occurs between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time.

Spring is a transition season in the Northern Hemisphere. During the spring season, we are transitioning out of the colder winter months into the warmer months of spring and eventually summer.

Auroras

March is the best time to see the northern lights and see how the spring equinox boosts aurora activity. These auroras occur when energetic particles from the sun collide with gases in Earth’s upper atmosphere. Our planet’s magnetic field directs these particles toward the poles and can trigger geomagnetic storms and auroral displays. During the equinoxes, when day and night are almost the same length due to our planet’s tilt aligning with its orbit around the sun, the orientation of Earth’s poles is almost perpendicular to that of the sun.

Death Valley superbloom

The hottest and driest place in North America is Death Valley National Park. and occasionally there is a superbloom. Most of the time, the landscape is stark – salt flats, sand dunes, and rocky mountains with a few hardy shrubs and small trees. But the area had more than a year’s worth of rain between November 2025 and January 2026. So the extra rain woke up dormant seeds. It has given us the first superbloom in Death Valley since 2016, with wildflowers of yellow, purple, pink, and white blooms.

 

The Home page image for this blog post is bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) by Donna VanBuecken.