Meteorological seasons make a bit more sense, and IME those are more commonly used anyway:
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/meteorological-versus-astrono...
The Seasons Are Wrong
11–20 of 67 posts
Re: The Seasons Are Wrong
#12Do you want to define the seasons by temperature? Or by lengthening of the day? Because, to me, seasons are tied to weather in general, but temperature specifically. And temperature seems to correlates to length of day, but trails it by about a month. Which makes sense, since it takes time to heat/cool the enormous thermal mass. So, if weather is how you track the changing of the seasons, it’s close enough to correct as-is.
Re: The Seasons Are Wrong
#13[deleted]
Re: The Seasons Are Wrong
#14Start of summer.. June 21st? Is this statement true for US? Another thing to put in mind, besides Fahrenheit, yards, lbs.. at least time (besides 12 hour clock) seem to conform with the rest of the world...
[deleted]
Re: The Seasons Are Wrong
#15The ancient Hawaiians had two main seasons - winter and summer, marked by the rising of Pleiades in the East during the winter and the setting of the Pleiades in the West summer, which corresponds roughly to November and May. And lines roughly up with what the article proposes.
Re: The Seasons Are Wrong
#16What is he on about? Ah, american. Ok.
Re: The Seasons Are Wrong
#17Better title: our labels for natural phenomena don’t make sense.
Re: The Seasons Are Wrong
#18I think Sekki, made easy by https://smallseasons.guide/, addresses this adequately. I am surprised at how closely the Japanese dates mirror actual transitions in Ireland. It's rarely off by more than a day or two, if at all. I hardly think about seasons anymore.
Re: The Seasons Are Wrong
#19I actually agree. Summer starting when the days grow short makes no sense. By that time half of summer has passed.
> Summer starting when the days grow short makes no sense.
Well, that's why there isn't just one summer. We have meteorological summer, astronomical summer, solar summer, etc. Solar summer already covers your intent.
I'm reminded of the comments every time unemployment rates are mentioned. Someone invariably chimes in with something like "the unemployment rate isn't valid because it fails to account for x", somehow not realizing that there isn't just one unemployment rate and that x is accounted for in the applicable rates.
Re: The Seasons Are Wrong
#20“One sort of optional thing you might do is realize that there are six seasons instead of four. The poetry of four seasons is all wrong for this part of the planet, and this may explain why we are depressed so much of the time. I mean, spring doesn’t feel like spring a lot of the time, and November is all wrong for autumn, and so on. Here is the truth about the seasons: Spring is May and June. What could be springier than May and June? Summer is July and August. Really hot, right? Autumn is September and October. See the pumpkins? Smell those burning leaves? Next comes the season called Locking. November and December aren’t winter. They’re Locking. Next comes winter, January and February. Boy! Are they ever cold! What comes next? Not spring. ‘Unlocking’ comes next. What else could cruel March and only slightly less cruel April be? March and April are not spring. They’re Unlocking.”
—Kurt Vonnegut