When do you consider the seasons to start/end?
Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2016 3:47 pm
Yesterday (21st December 2016) was considered to be the first day of winter, according to some. According to others, it starts on 1st December.
According to this, the astronomical seasons start on the solstices and equinoxes (so normally around 21st December, March, June, September), and the meteorological seasons start on the 1st of the months (December, March, June, September).
I've always thought of the solstice/equinox system to be the "traditional" definition, but I think a lot of people have the idea in their head that winter is the cold season and summer is the hot season, so things should be based around optimising that in some way, and the 1st of the month definition seems to fit better with these intuitions.
Well first of all, I want to call bullshit on the name "meteorological season". Basically this is the definition that weather forecasters use. But it doesn't make these seasons "meteorological" in any way. If a group of mathematicians came along and defined seasons in another way, it wouldn't make these seasons mathematical. I think a better name, rather than "meteorological season" is "meteorologistical season", because it relates to meteorologists, not meteorology.
Not that this means that I think that this definition of seasons should never be used. But actually, I wouldn't use it anyway. If I was going to use a system other than what I consider to be the traditional one and wanted to base it on when it's hot and cold, I'd look at long term averages and then divide the year into four equally long seasons that did it's best to maximise the summer average temperature and minimise the winter average temperature.
What do you think?
According to this, the astronomical seasons start on the solstices and equinoxes (so normally around 21st December, March, June, September), and the meteorological seasons start on the 1st of the months (December, March, June, September).
I've always thought of the solstice/equinox system to be the "traditional" definition, but I think a lot of people have the idea in their head that winter is the cold season and summer is the hot season, so things should be based around optimising that in some way, and the 1st of the month definition seems to fit better with these intuitions.
Well first of all, I want to call bullshit on the name "meteorological season". Basically this is the definition that weather forecasters use. But it doesn't make these seasons "meteorological" in any way. If a group of mathematicians came along and defined seasons in another way, it wouldn't make these seasons mathematical. I think a better name, rather than "meteorological season" is "meteorologistical season", because it relates to meteorologists, not meteorology.
Not that this means that I think that this definition of seasons should never be used. But actually, I wouldn't use it anyway. If I was going to use a system other than what I consider to be the traditional one and wanted to base it on when it's hot and cold, I'd look at long term averages and then divide the year into four equally long seasons that did it's best to maximise the summer average temperature and minimise the winter average temperature.
What do you think?