In Genesis 8:13, in which month did Noah see that the ground surface had dried?

In Genesis 8:13, Noah saw that the ground surface had dried in the first month of the six hundred and first year of his life.

The verse gives a precise point in the Flood chronology. It says that on the first day of that month Noah removed the covering of the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was drying. Genesis then records a later date, the twenty-seventh day of the second month, when the earth was fully dry and God told Noah to leave.

This detail is easy to confuse with the seventh month, when the ark is said to rest on the mountains of Ararat, or with the tenth month, when mountain tops become visible. Those are separate milestones in the narrative.

The wording reflects an ancient calendar system and does not specify a modern calendar month such as January or April. The key answer is the first month, not a named modern month.