A certain groundhog is set to make its prediction this weekend for how long until spring starts, so its appropriate to feature a more qualitative assessment of the date as shown by the featured chart. It presents the trailing 91 day average temperature for Ames. If one considers the start of spring to be the date when the 91 day trailing average starts to increase, which would denote the end of the coldest 91 day period of the year (winter), then we likely have around five weeks left to go. The middle panel shows date each year ending the coldest 91 day period along with a long term trend line fit. The fit is rather neutral with the simple average on 2 March. Well, let us see what the groundhog has to say!

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Bad = 2
Abstain = 1

Tags:   spring