You’ve missed my point. My whole reason for starting this thread is hearing various bodies (TV, radio DJs, calendars, random conversationalists) assert that the Solstice is THE OFFICIAL FIRST DAY OF WINTER™. They’ll even use this when expressing irony, such as the reports saying “Even though it’s cold as hell and snowing, ironically winter hasn’t started yet officially.” Clearly, those people are able to recognize the absurdity of the claim that winter starts in the Solstice, but they never question it.
Like you, I have no idea why they think this is official, when it turns out it isn’t. As far as I am aware, no governmental or scientific authority proclaims it “official”, and I am wondering where we got the idea.
What can I say? People like to throw out the word “official”. They think it makes them sound . . . I don’t know, more official. But in a lot of contexts, including this one, it’s just a noise word.
I don’t think it’s an absurd claim; I actually prefer the astronomical definition myself because it’s objective and universal and matches the long-term weather averages reasonably well in my climate. It’s just that there’s nothing official about it.
Preach on! I hate it when the weather drones make stupid comments about how winter/summer hasn’t “officially” started yet. Saying that winter is the months of December, January, & February works much better, corresponding much more closely to what the weather is usually doing. Similarly, saying that summer runs from June through August would be much closer to reality than using some dumb solstice.
Idiots and ignoramuses (or is it ignorami?) will say anything. :smack:
Winter begins when it gets cold enough to be considered winter and not fall any more. Some years that happens earlier than in others. This year, for example, it has been winter most if not all of December in the Eastern Half of Northern North America. BRRRRR :eek:
There is no “official” season of winter, universally accepted by all governing agencies and by the populace in general. In California, we didn’t even HAVE winter, unless you lived in the high desert or the Sierra Nevada.
There is, however, good reason not to have the solstices be the midpoints of the “season.” This is because the temperature changes lag behind the astronomical changes that precipitate the temperature changes. That is, although daylight hours shorten after the Summer Solstice, it still tends to get hotter for at least a month after the Solstice, especially in latitudes where there is significant temperature variation with the seasons. It would be equally silly to call everything from early to mid-August “fall.”
Right. The wiseacres talking about “oh, it’s only officially winter now” are just revelling in their own ignorance as to real astronomy and climatology.
There is of course also another component to the whole “when is it really winter/spring/summer/autumn” discussion, which is that regardless of the solstices and equinoxes, the layman’s “weather” seasons don’t have to be of equal duration. Think about it – depending on your latitude, nearness to water, elevation, etc. your “hot” or “cold” season may be considerably longer or shorter than 90 days.
Right on! I well recall a Barbadian asking me if winter was when it was cold or when it was hot. In Barbados, there are no hot and cold seasons, only wet (July - November) and (by comparison, at least) dry season. Or mosquito season and fewer mosquitos season. (It is, to be sure, about 3 deg warmer in July than in January, but I don’t think most Bajans are even aware of that.)
