The Seasons Are Wrong | Hacker News Reader

The Seasons Are Wrong

kentwalters.com

43 pointsNikxDa60 comments

“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

It’s a shame that the months in English don’t really have descriptive names like in other languages.

Polish (and other Slavic languages) for example, has some interesting ones:

- February (Luty) comes from “bleak, harsh, bitter”

- April (Kwiecień) is “month of flowers”

- August (Sierpień) is “month of the sickle,” as in the harvest time

- November (Listopad) is “month of leaves falling”

The French Republican calendar used a few years after the revolution was also in this spirit. However these names do not export well across the world, notably a problem when as a colonial power like France you export your language and customs.

The non descriptive names are better because they can be consistent across different countries not depending climate

July in Croatian - Srpanj August in Czech/Polish - Srpen/Sierpen

because for obvious reasons harvest time in Croatia is one month earlier than in Czechia

though your example for April in Polish makes no sense

April in Polish - Kwiecien May in Czech - Kveten

I'm pretty sure flowers are blooming (it's not about flowers, but about blooming) in Czechia earlier than in Poland, so the names should be reversed

though even English/German/Slovak months are not without their issues, October should be eight, November ninth, December tenth based on their Latin names, this video makes fun about it, but honestly I seriously like the proposed system:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=vunESk53r5U

As a Brit, this feels like a much better fit.

Here (Vermont) we call Locking Stick Season and Unlocking Mud Season, but agree that six is the right number

This somewhat aligns with the 12 seasons of New York[0].

[0]: https://12seasons.nyc/

Do 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.

I thought the article could have been interesting if it cross-referenced with temperature, sadly it was quite basic.

Yeah there are "climatological seasons." The Earth heats up over time, as you say, so the longest day of the year is not generally the hottest day. Climatological summer is June/July/August. The Romans and many other northern hemisphere cultures marked summer as starting before the solstice. I'm not sure when we got the idea that Summer was supposed to start on the solstice.

And which temperatures - air, ground, sea? Or qualitative measures such as when lambs are born, crops are harvested, leaves fall, etc?

There's a lot that we associate with seasons. But the quote somewhere above about six seasons with locking before winter and unlocking after does feel like a better fit to me.

But it's more than just the temperature, or the day length.

There's a big difference between 40-50°F in November, when the trees are brown and barren, and you're looking ahead to winter, and you swear there's a hint of frost in the air...

...and 40-50°F in April, when the leafbuds are coming out, and the geese are flying back north, and is that a crocus coming up over there?

There are meteorological seasons already defined by weather shifts.

”Winter was short, this year”. “Spring came early”. It does not make sense to tie these concepts to a calendar. Summer is when you dare to dip your toes in the ocean. In winter we have a meter of ice. I generally place vacation weeks in July and august, because the weather is nice and other people are on vacation as well.

The statement that the seasons are wrong, does not make sense. To tie these names to a calendar, does not make sense.

I'm with you.

Australia calls December "summer". If climate patterns changed and shifted our weather patterns by a month, we'd shift our season vernacular to match.

Seasons refer to the climate we experience. They're a human experience, not calendar slot.

The Noongar calendar from the south west of Western Australia is, of course, a much better fit to the local climate. We are just starting Djeran, with probably the best weather of the year, then it'll be Makuru, with by far the most rain and plenty of rainbows, and coldest temperatures. Djilba is when it just starts warming up again and at the end of Djilba is wildflower season which is probably the most beautiful time in the region. Then it's Kambarang around October November which is perfect temperature again, and then we are into Birak which is "first summer" and Bunuru "second summer". Obviously it's linked to food availability rather than the weather but it does fit far better than the British four seasons.

Yeah, I was expecting this to be an article about climate change which really is causing the seasons to become "wrong".

As a trivial example, a couple of weeks ago a local newspaper reprinted its usual "What's on in London in April?" article, and one of the items was "the first half of April is peak cherry blossom season".

Er, not any more it isn't! Most fruit trees were already in leaf by the time the paper went to press, with only a few prunes remaining with significant amounts of blossom. And we'll see a similar article in May talking about bluebells, despite them actually being at their peak right now. So that's a shift of 2-3 weeks over the course of the two decades that that particular publication has existed.

And it might not matter so much if the seasons were changing equally for all species - but some instead rely on day length, yet others on the amount of sunlight (which has been low so far this year). So pollinators are arriving only at the end of pollen season, predatory insects are finding their prey diminished by starvation, rodents haven't hibernated, and entire ecosystems are becoming weirdly distorted.

I've never thought starting seasons on the solstice/equinox made any sense, but I live in a Mediterranean climate, where winter is the two months that are chilly with continuous rain and fog, and summer is the two months where it never cools off and there's not a single cloud in the sky. These are centered around their respective equinoxes. (equinoxia? equinoctes?)

In a continental climate, with real weather, there's a lag between the day length and the temperature, so it makes more sense to start the season on the solstice/equinox.

I have been thinking about this issue for a similar length of time as the article author, but for the reasons you describe think the seasons should be slightly offset from the solstices (as opposed to centered on them). My current thinking is that summer should run from one month before the summer solstice to two months after, and so forth.

No its not quite right still, I think for the US it still makes the most sense to have the start of the summer be the longest day, because basically the earth has been heating up to that point and that’s when the energy input begins to wane. Think about it like a steak: when you take it off the grill, its still heating up a bit before it starts to cool down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_lag

Excellent link. So the best solution is to take the authors observation and add the average seasonal lag to arrive at the „real“ observed spring, summer, fall and winter.

I've lived in North America most of my life, at various latitudes and in various climates. Maybe half of the continent gets four, equal length, distinct seasons? That's enough to culturally dominate perceptions, but I have never known anyone to take the calendar-based equinox/solstice "start of {{season}}" as anything more than a conversational novelty. Even correcting adjusting the start/end dates is still inadequate when the idea of four distinct, equal seasons isn't the reality for half of the continent.

For example, when I lived in Western New York, there were four seasons for sure, but Winter was five months long, and I won't hear otherwise. Now I'm on the Gulf Coast and we don't have four seasons in the conventional sense. There are definitely five, and they're not equal length. Across six months, there is Summer Part One, The Season of August, and Summer Part Two. There is no "Winter", but there is a six-to-eight-week "cold front season" where the temperature may snap cold for 2-3 days, then gradually warms up to be mild over the next 5-7 days, and eventually snaps cold again. Repeat four or five times and this short season is over.

Plus, depending on the ENSO cycle we can have a true, mid-year "rainy season" similar to Japan, with near-daily short downpours at the same time each day (shifting slightly later in the day across the season). In the other parts of the cycle, we won't.

Start 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...

Yes, in the US seasons are aligned with equinoxes and solstices. I.e. summer starts at the Summer Solstice and ends at the Autumnal Equinox.

How does it work where you are from? I'm from Spain and was taught the same

Round here (GB) the standard, as reflected in decorative calendars and the like, seems to be:

Spring: Mar, Apr, May

Summer: Jun, Jul, Aug

Autumn: Sep, Oct, Nov

Winter: Dec, Jan, Feb

Works for me.

Moving from the US to the UK, one of the first things I noticed was that the colloquial understanding of the seasons mapped much more cleanly onto what actually happens with the weather here. Growing up in the midwest of the US the seasons all felt off in the same way the author describes.

The parent comment about Great Britain sounds exactly the same as the Atlantic / Midwest US to me. Where did you have it differently?

Autumn this season in the UK was (is) September to April. It's still cloudy, windy and chilly (2.5c below the average today).

It feels like it's never going to end!

In my mind this is it, the colloquial seasons, and with vague boundaries depending on feeling, whereas the calendar "seasons" are there just to quarter the year artificially.

yup those are simplified meteorological seasons from lazy meteorologists small kids also learn in school

I always tell my kids if they wanna accurately measure the seasons they must use astronomical seasons, which are more accurate

I had never even heard the idea of seasons starting on the solstices or equinoxes before. What a bizarre way to look at the year.

A lot of time cycles are rooted on what happens in the sky, not on land, because what happens on land seems to vary all the time, but what happen in the sky seem to be fixed and immutable. The day comes from the Earth rotation. the week and the month originally comes from Moon orbit and phases, the year and seasons from Earth's orbit and tilt.

The seasons in particular happens essentially in the same day in the same way across multiple years. You can put a mark, build a set of monoliths or whatever and see when you are back in that day again, regardless if it is a rainy, cold, hot or windy day. Weather is very variable, and may happen differently in different regions, but you can trust in the skies. And have a clear prediction for that was essential for any civilization based on crops and agriculture, or hunters/gatherers to know when trees will start to bear fruits and some animals come out from hibernation.

Most people are exceptionally good at differentiating between scientific (meteorological, astronomical) seasons and when it is time to spend months eating ice cream in shorts.

I'd be far more interested in learning how seasons shift due to climate change, or alternative systems based on extreme climates or other circumstances.

A quick search reveals that the Sami people appear to have 8 seasons [0], in old-timey war seasons can be divided in to fighting season and reconstitution season, aboriginal Australians had systems of 5-8 seasons [1], and the Canaries have only one season.

0 - https://kirunalapland.se/en/our-eight-seasons/

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australian_seasons

Similarly the people of Toronto recognise only two seasons, winter and construction.

Seems like the seasons are a local thing.

Now, this also seems like a calculable problem. Other posters mention seasonal lag and other effects.

Guys, we have computers, we can compute this, it should be straightforward?

Grab a few data sets like rainfall, temp, solar, etc, get a map from like Google Earth or whatever, combine them and have it spit out the seasons, right?

Now, I'm not a tropical person (as in I don't live in between the tropic lines on the map), so I've no idea what the seasons are like there (summer, just always summer?), or what it is like in the Sahara or in Sweden, so I don't know if you'd then need to just come up with entirely new seasons. That would be a very local thing to name, I'd imagine. But I think that you'd be able to mostly just compute all this, right?

I've been thinking of this but I figured the start/end of seasons make a lot of sense if you think about the effect the length of days has on temperature. Essentially the length of days effects the rate of energy added by the system. For instance days are longest on June 21st but temperatures will generally keep increasing until August.

It's a bit like taking that sinusoid and integrating it resulting in a cosine shifted by a quarter of a phase.

I 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.

I 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.

This article does not take into consideration seasonal lag, where temperature trails behind sunlight by 4 to 8 weeks. So while the solstice in June is peak sunlight August is peak temperature, so summer being mid June to mid September with august being the hottest time of year makes sense.

Some people live in a cabin and all they see is the thermometer. Some others live outside and they see nature

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 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.

What is he on about? Ah, american. Ok.

In Ireland, in February, the days warm up often into the double digits, galanthus are flowering, grass begins to take on its spring green, and I am to believe that this is still the depths of winter. No, rejected. Dismissing this article as "American" is misguided at best.

No, late february is not the depths of winter, it's the very end of winter

Right—in Ireland (to which I have just moved).

In Upstate New York (from which I have just moved), February is the depths of winter. The temperature there can plunge to -10°F (for the highs) for a week straight. It's not until early April that you're really guaranteed to see things thawing for good. (March can be a crapshoot; sometimes it's looking like spring, with warm breezes and birds returning, and other times you get 4 feet of snow dumped on you. In the same week.)

The maritime climate of the British Isles makes an enormous difference to the climate they experience—certainly as compared to the continental US, and to a lesser degree as compared to continental Europe. It's actually kind of fascinating teasing apart which of our cultural truisms about seasons originated on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, vs which ones were developed once we had colonized the New World.

Welcome to Ireland

You are incorrect. Winter starts on the ~21st of December. By the time February rolls around, we are only 6 weeks into the 12-week season of winter. The start of February is precisely the depths of winter. Late February is the ⅔ mark, and the third week of March is the very end.

I think it's interesting that traditionally Ireland used a different calendar for seasons - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_calendar

So Winter is Nov, Dec, Jan - and Spring is Feb, March, April. Which honestly, makes sense to me.

Except it's the middle of April, I'm freezing, and got pelted with hail yesterday. The west coast cares little for seasons!

Interesting.

I find that Japanese Sekki line up almost perfectly in North Co. Cork https://smallseasons.guide/

American discovers basic property of life which their culture purposely rejected in order to be quirky™

((cries in erratic [name redacted] weather))

The traditional Chinese calendar already accounts for that, with Spring beginning in late February/early March. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_term.

In terms of temperature rather than length of daylight, the peak of summer depends on geography (and latitude in particular). In where I live (Hong Kong), July and August are the hottest months and so it makes sense to me that Summer begins in June.

I have my own set of seasons, which are offset 1/2 season from our standard reckoning.

1) The Darkness: November 6 to February 4 (the dates are midpoints in the current seasons)

2) The Brightening: February 4 to May 5

3) The Brightness: May 5 to August 6.

4) The Darkening: August 6 to November 6

Better title: our labels for natural phenomena don’t make sense.

The only thing with more power than curiosity and intelligence is the power of indignant ignorance.

If this had been submitted on April 1st, I might've let it slide, but this is just ridiculous. It's like saying, "I mean, it's just one big word salad of how do you define something?" It's really quite sad.

We dont make it up. The spinning rock decided

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