In New England, it probably doesn't make sense to divide the year into four equal seasons.

[xiphias]

Officially, each season starts on one of the quarter days: an equinox or solstice. But, really -- while "spring starts in mid-to-late-March" is reasonable, and "fall starts mid-September" feels a little late, but okay if you include Indian summer, "summer starts in mid-to-late-June" and "winter starts in mid-to-late December" are ridiculous.

I think, in our hearts, we all know that winter and summer are longer than spring and fall. So I think it makes sense to include the cross-quarter days. That puts spring from, say, about March 20 to about May 7 or so; summer from about May 8 to September 21 or so; fall from about September 22 to around November 7; winter from about November 8 to March 19.

Approximately. Feel free to shift dates around a bit.

That would make spring and fall about a month and a half each, and summer and winter about four and a half months each. Summer and winter would be about three times as long as spring and fall.

One could also just go by months: spring would be March and April; summer would be May, June, July, and August; fall would be September and October; winter would be November, December, January, and February. That shifts seasons away from the solar calendar, and also makes the major seasons only twice as long as the minor seasons, instead of three times.

In my heart, I feel like something in that range makes sense: spring DOES start somewhere between March 1 and March 21; summer DOES start somewhere in the first week of May; fall DOES start somewhere between September 1 and September 22; winter DOES start somewhere in the first week of November.

I mean, for New England.

Comments

[tober.livejournal.com]

There are more-or-less official meteorological seasons that differ from the astronomical seasons. See http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/news/meteorological-versus-astronomical-summer%E2%80%94what%E2%80%99s-difference

(meteorological seasons are summer - June-August, fall - September-November, winter - December-February, spring - March-May - doesn't address your criticism about fall and spring being shorter than summer and winter but at least the mid-seasons are considerably better-positioned)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Those do seem more reasonable, yes. I can live with those: "May" being spring and "November" being fall seem plausible, too, making four equal-ish seasons.

Yeah, the extant meteorological seasons seem at LEAST as good as the ones I suggested, if not better.

[goljerp]

This makes sense to me (having grown up in New England and lived there till I moved to New York -- with the exception of my year abroad, of course.)