Yeah, I actually started writing that in my previous post. Those weekends do signify the beginning and end of summer to me the most.
The only Americans I have ever in my life heard refer to the Solstice as the beginning of summer are tv weather-casters. Ever. I’m not sure where this notion that “most” Americans think any such thing has come from.
Canada is vaguely similar, in that some people call Victoria Day “the unofficial beginning of summer”. I’ve seen plenty of cool (or downright cold) Victoria Days, though.
It came from the TV weather-casters. Duh.
Here in Georgia the seasons are:
tolerable moving to HOT
HOT
tolerable moving to cold
cold (mixed with tolerable)
One doesn’t know when a season has changed until it has been that way for 3 consective weeks with no more than 3 days of the other mixed in. For instance, 2 weeks of HOT followed by 4 days of tolerable means it is still “tolerable moving to HOT” season.
These designations make much more sense than the ones y’all are arguing about and are widely accepted among people who wear my clothes.
It says “summer begins” for today on my OfficeMax calendar. No weathercaster involved.
I really quite liked yesterday’s winter solstice google doodle - it was knitting it’s self. Sensibly no mention on the start of winter which is June 1
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For good Summer Solstice fun, for anybody in a day’s driving distance of Santa Barbara, Ca.:
Note that they have a big Summer Solstice Parade every year, on the Saturday nearest the solstice. This year, that’s tomorrow (June 22). It starts at NOON, on State Street.
It a big festival, Mardi Gras style parade, except, unlike Mardi Gras, they have the good sense to run it (a) at the beginning of summer instead of mid-winter, and (b) during the day instead of at night.
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Do I have to give anything up during the 6 weeks while I’m waiting for the resurrection of the melanin in my skin (aka tan)?
Ha! You almost bought that didn’t you - the part about the tan? Wait. Shit. Is my web cam on . . .
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the Google doodle. It doesn’t insist that today is the first day of summer, it merely celebrates summer, and what better day to do so than the summer solstice?
Regarding summer in Canada or Alaska, I hear it’s lovely. If it falls on a weekend, they have a picnic.
Heck, I’ve seen snow on Victoria Day. No problem; we can free up space in the fridge by putting the beer on the porch.
If the solstice is midsummer, then the start of summer (March 21, I’m guessing) is a time when we still usually have snow on the ground, when we can still get snowstorms, and that can still have days of temps below 0 degrees C.
No, that’s winter. The summer solstice is, as far as I’m concerned, the start of summer.
The text you got from floating the mouse said “first day of summer”.
It’s frickin’ freezing.
Here’s how I was told to do it (this method may seem strange to you northerners):
September is the first day of Spring. S = S. Working from there it goes:
[ul]
[li]Spring - Sep, Oct, Nov[/li][li]Summer - Dec, Jan, Feb[/li][li]Autumn - Mar, Apr, May[/li][li]Winter - Jun, Jul, Aug[/li][/ul]
Even though the Solstices and Equinoxes are supposedly mid-season, they’re somewhat off-kilter with this method.
I really don’t understand the controversy here. It seems to me that there is a cultural summer and an astronomical summer, neither of which should be confused with the other, and both of which are equally valid in the United States and Britain. But I’m guessing that the vast majority of people in both countries pay most attention to the cultural one, so seems very odd to call the observation of the astronomical summer “an American tradition”, when it is neither uniquely American (it’s astronomical, after all) nor terribly popular in said country.
Actually, there are at least three summers–the astronomical (solstice to equinox), meteorological (June 1-August 31), and the cultural (Memorial Day to Labor Day). However I disagree that the astronomical does not predominate in American usage.
Today’s Chicago Tribune headline: “3 dead, 11 wounded on first day of summer”. Yesterday’s Cubs broadcast: “It looks like the Cubs will win on the first day of summer”. My office calendar: June 21, “first day of summer”. I hear relatively few people refer to June 1 or Memorial Day as the “first day of summer”.
Here in the mid-Atlantic, I think of summer in terms of “would you swim in this weather?” Would you be more likely to have decent swimming weather on June 15 or September 15, for instance? That’s easy: June 15. So it makes more sense for June 15 to be part of summer than September 15, even though in the U.S., September 15 is part of summer, and June 15 isn’t. Not to mention, nobody really treats September 15 like part of summer, but most people do treat June 15 that way.
I am so with you on that.
Back to the swimming, around here you’ve got maybe a couple of weeks’ worth of good swimming days before the solstice (early to mid June has its share of coolish days where you wouldn’t swim for fun), but you have more than two solid months of good swimming weather after the solstice. So the solstice as midsummer doesn’t fit any better than the solstice as beginning of summer.
So I’m with you: summer is June, July, and August. Midsummer would be in mid-July.
Yeppers to all this. And on the radio in the morning, the deejays on the local rock stations, and the non-weather newscasters on NPR, will refer to the equinoxes and solstices as the beginning of the season, when they roll around. (e.g. “Spring begins today at 4:17pm” referencing the exact astronomical moment when the sun crosses the equator.)
I don’t know who decided that the astronomical definition was the one everyone on this continent should talk up, but I sure wish they’d revisit that decision. It’s particularly irritating at the fall equinox, when they tell you summer’s about to end on a day when summer’s clearly been over for weeks already.
I have lived in several climes here in North America, at latitudes ranging from roughly 43.25 to 38.75. I will grant I have never seen a June that seemed much like Spring, but I have never seen an August that at all seemed like Fall.
If we’re willing to go by subjective feelings, then Fall is September, October, and part of November, Winter is late November through February, spring is March through May, and Summer is June July and August.
That Summer doesn’t start until June 22nd seems absurd (and that winter doesn’t start until December 22nd seems equally absurd, as there may have been snow on the ground for a month by then), but the notion that Summer starts on May 10 seems equally absurd if not more so: May is sometimes warm, but never hot. May is not in summer.
Of course:IMO, YMMV.
That seems odd to me. Here in the UK I would much rather swim in the sea in mid September than in mid June, as it has had all summer to warm up and is just about at its warmest.
In mid June the sea off southern England is only around 13C (55F). By September it can be more like 18C (64F) - still not exactly warm for softies like me, but at least out of instant numbing territory.
You get this glow when you’re enraged. It’s almost…almost…like the glow of a Midsummer’s Solstice Sun ! 
( d&r )