Happy Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival! Today marks the beginning of a wood dragon year, and is jia chen dragon year in Chinese. This is all based on a calendaring system influenced by celestial and mythical beliefs, with 60 year cycles = 12 “earthly branches” corresponding to zodiac animals X 5 pairs of “heavenly stems” corresponeding to the elements.

Rather than this mythological stuff, I find this year — if you broadly consider 2024 — to be the year of the natural phenomena convergence! Take a look at some of what’s going on:

• December 2023/January 2024 – earthquakes, avalanches, volcanic eruptions
• late 2023/early 2024 – (temporary) return of Lake Manly in Death Valley, where usually it’s just the Badwater Basin salt flats
• January/February – atmospheric rivers — which might lead to super blooms this year?
• February – leap month!
• April 08 – total solar eclipse (I’m going to Waco to catch this one)
• May/June – emergence of two cicada broods (I’m considering going to Springfield, Illinois to try to catch a little overlap in them)
• likely sometime this year – the sun’s poles will flip on their 11 year cycle
• towards the end of the year – possible solar maximum, causing lots of Northern Light shows
• all year, but especially prevalant in winter months – Northern Lights! (I plan on going to Norway around October-December to try to catch some beauty out there)