Do you have a source pointing at that common definition? I lived a majority of my life in the West US (ID, MT, WA), and have never heard North Dakota referred to as the West.
Maybe it's a Canadian thing? -100W is the border of Manitoba and Alberta?
I've heard it used for bird ecology for sure. The 100th meridian is the general cutoff between eastern bird species and western bird species. I think it holds true in other areas of biology.
I've driven back and forth across it a lot. Obviously it's a gradient and not some magic barrier the great-tailed grackles cannot cross. And we do get western kingbirds a couple hundred miles east as well as western meadowlarks. It's still a handy boundary so that you know more or less what to expect in a given area ecologically.
msrenee|4 years ago
I've driven back and forth across it a lot. Obviously it's a gradient and not some magic barrier the great-tailed grackles cannot cross. And we do get western kingbirds a couple hundred miles east as well as western meadowlarks. It's still a handy boundary so that you know more or less what to expect in a given area ecologically.
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/04/11/the-100th-merid...
https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-04-12-100t...
rascul|4 years ago
JeremyTerps|4 years ago