This week, for nearly a century, the Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival has staged a formal dance. Organizers rely on a manual that’s been passed down for generations. Also, abortion is illegal in most cases in Tennessee. So what happens after a birth? A photographer followed one mother for a year. And, new prisons are touted as a way to bring jobs to former coal communities. Not everybody agrees the trade-off is worth it.
According to the network’s 2023 report, spring leaves sprouted 20 days earlier than usual in Appalachia.Roxy Todd/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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Spring has sprung early, according to the annual Status of Spring report from the USA National Phenology Network.
Phenology is the study of seasonal change and the network tracks when leaves sprout as heat accumulates across the nation.
According to the network’s 2023 report, spring leaves sprouted 20 days earlier than usual in Appalachia.
Appalachia is not alone in its early spring as parts of the southeast, lower Midwest, and mid-Atlantic are seeing either the earliest spring on record or a spring that only occurs once every 40 years.
Without a harsh enough winter, plants adapt and respond as they have for millennia. Spring leaf out continues to spread north, arriving several days to weeks earlier than average in much of the nation.
At the beginning of each calendar year, nature responds to gradual heat accumulation in the earth’s atmosphere. When the daily average is above freezing, plants and animals act accordingly, preparing to grow.
While a mild winter is enjoyable to some, without low temperatures plants sprout earlier, disrupting gardeners’ and farmers’ crops.
An age old tradition of using shapes instead of notes helps untrained singers harmonize. And as the fall season kicks off, a look at weather extremes -- and if climate change is playing a role.
When Hurricane Helene struck Western North Carolina in 2024, it knocked out internet and cell service. That created an information gap that was quickly filled by conspiracy theories and misinformation. Now, a new project looks to tell the truth of the disaster. Islands in the Sky is a forthcoming comics anthology about the storm and its aftermath. The book will feature stories told by survivors in partnership with comics professionals. Islands in the Sky was conceived by North Carolina comics writer Andrew Aydin. Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with Aydin about the project.
