Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 8:5 tracks the waters like a patient sailor counting days. The Aramaic says that the waters went and diminished until the tenth month, the month Tammuz. In Tammuz, in the first of the month, the heads of the mountains were seen.
This is the first piece of dry land Noah sees in almost a year. Imagine the vantage. He has been living inside a wooden box on a gray and endless ocean. He opens the hatch on the first of Tammuz, and there, in the distance, are the bare tops of peaks — small, stubborn islands poking through the water like fingers of the old world reaching back up.
The Targum's calendar is precise because it wants us to feel the slowness of redemption. The waters did not drain in a day. They went and diminished. Month by month, the sea pulled back, and month by month, the earth returned.
The Maggid sees a quiet teaching here. When the Holy One rebuilds a world, He does it visibly but unhurriedly. The takeaway: if you are waiting for the waters of your own life to recede, watch for the heads of the mountains first. A little ridge of hope is how the new ground always begins to show.