When do the seasons start & end where you live?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Inspired by this thread and this article.

Seasons are tricky things. Although most calendars refer to June 21 - the summer solstice - as the first day of summer, most areas of the US are well into warm weather at that point. Winter officially starts on December 21, which fits about as well.

So if we define “summer” as “the hottest few months of the year”, “winter” as “the coldest few months of the year”, and spring and fall as the period in between, what’s the breakdown where you live?

For me, in the frozen north, the seasons are roughly:

Summer: July through September. It’s a better bet that September will be warm than June being warm.

Fall: October, maybe the first part of November.

Winter: Winter begins by the end of November (but on a bad year we can have snow in October). It’s usually over by the end of April, but we’ve had snow into June.

Spring: May and June.

Of course, this all varies depending on the year. Some years, all the months are winter. :smiley:

2

This is such a sore subject for me :frowning: :frowning: :frowning: :frowning: :frowning:

I come from the wonderfully beautiful New England, where on the coast the vibrant colors start in lat october and run into the beginning of November. The more inland New England climes start in September and are raging into the 2nd week of October.

Now I live in Phoneix. Where there are two seasons. Summer and Winter. Summer goes from roughly may through October, and Winter from November til april. Oh well I love the vast open expanses… No, No I really do!

3

Toronto seasons:

Almost Winter: November
Winter: December.
Really winter now: January, February.
Still winter: early March
Mud: late March
Spring: April, early May
Smog ^wSummer: late May, June, July, August, early September.
Fall: late September, October.

4

Good follow-on thread!

Are you familiar with Lewis Grizzard? He’s best known as a humorist/comic from Georgia but he worked a short time in Chicago. He said that Chicago had two seasons: winter and the 4th of July.

In Tennessee, as a general rule, winter comes as late as early January some years and as early as late November in others. There have been Christmases where folks were in short sleeves and Thanksgivings where they were bundled up in sweaters and coats.

Summer is already in full swing by the time school lets out in mid-May and I’ve seen it hot enough to go full-time on the A/C as early as late April, although we usually rely on opening windows and going with “natural air” from mid-March to mid-May. Same thing for the late-September through early-November period.

Signs of spring begin in February. Valentine’s Day as an early marker. Fall season can begin to arrive in late October, although there are years when leaves are still on the trees in mid-December.

It’s not uncommon to have a series of “false winters” or “late summers” in those transitional months leading into spring and fall.

In short, it varies. A lot.

5

Following Sunspace’s lead, I present Baltimore’s seasons:

Warmish Summer: June
Goddamn, it’s fucking hot: July, August, September
Fall: October and November
Mild Winter, no snow: December
Real Winter, snow included: January and February
Rainy Spring: March and April
Sunny Spring: May

6

Following Sunspace’s lead, I present Tampa Bay’s seasons:

Warmish Summer: March-May
Goddamn, it’s fucking hot: May, June, July, August, September, October, sometimes November
Fall: Can be October/November. Sometimes we don’t have much Fall at all.
Mild Winter, no snow: December-January
Real Winter, snow included: See: Hell Freezing Over, or Once in a Blue Moon (it’s snowed here, in terms of flurries, twice in the past 25 years.
Rainy Spring: Don’t really have this one.
Sunny Spring: Jan/Feb - Until Feb-April

7

There’s an old joke in Minnesota (granted, probably some of you other states use it too) that there are two seasons here: Winter and Road Construction. Not too far off, sadly.

Spring: April and May, in a good year. Sometimes late-March if we’re lucky. Sometimes we don’t really get spring at all. It just skips from winter right into summer.
Summer: Begins unofficially Memorial Day weekend. Continues through early- to mid-September.
Fall: Mid- to late-September, October, and part of November in a good year. Winter has been known to arrive on Halloween.
Winter: Sometimes October, almost always November, December, January, February, most of March, and sometimes April. This year, I went garage-saling in snow in May. That’s pretty rare, though.

8

Following Sunspace’s lead, I present New Orleans’s seasons:

Warm, mostly pleasant: March

Warm trending to uncomfortable: April

Hades at 99% humidity: May through early October

Three-day cool snap: normally around Halloween

A little more heat for good measure: mid-October through mid-November

Pot luck (inconsistently butt cold*, cool & breezy, or too-warm-for-sweaters): Thanksgiving through Mardi Gras

…

Mardi Gras season is kind of a wild card. Sometimes, it’s butt cold*. Sometimes, it’s ridiculously hot and sticky.

It snows about every 10-15 years. Last Christmas Day, maybe 1/4 inch of snow fell in New Orleans, and it was huge news. The interstates and bridges in much of SE Louisiana were closed for about a day.

*butt cold = below about 40 F. To the folks from the north: yeah, I know.

9

I live at the center of the universe*, so the seasons fall exactly as they should.

*NYC, naturally.

10

Southern NH here. The seasons vary HUGE from the south of NH to the north of NH.

In Southern NH:

Winter - November through March, dark, snowy, and cold.
Mud season - March through May. I’ve heard this is called spring some places, but it feels like “mild winter” to me.
Summer - May through early September
Hunting season - September 15 through December 15. Some have told me it’s called fall, and runs from early September through late November.

Up north, add a month to each side of winter, and remove it from summer.

11

In Sweden, the seasons are officially:

December through February - winter.
March through May - spring.
June through August - summer.
September through November - autumn.

So the first day of summer is June 1st, the first day of autumn is September 1st and so forth. I had never heard of officially starting summer on any day but June 1st until I read that column.

Anyway, using Athena’s breakdown, it works out like this:

Summer: July and August.
Autumn: September through December.
Winter: January and February.
Spring: March through June.

12

Albany:

Winter, Winter, Construction, and Fall.

13

Las Vegas:
February 5th: Spring
February 6th - November 29th: Summer
November 30th: Fall
December 1 - February 4th: Winter
Oh, and for the past few years, August 31st is the start of the Christmas shopping season - well, at least it is the day Walmart sets out the Christmas decorations for sale. Ah, the Yuletide glee of shopping for snow in a can in August. Ho ho ho.

14

Let’s see…

Tourist season: starts about Thanksgiving and runs through around Easter
Off season: May through about September
Rainy Season: suspiciously coincides with Hurricane Season, which is June 1 - Nov. 30
Spring: about two weeks in March
Fall: About two weeks in October

15

Almost winter.
Winter.
Still winter.
Construction. Coincides with Tourist Season, where everyone driving in front of you is on vacation, making it impossible to drive across town in a timely manner.

16

I live “Where the Sun Spends the Winter!” what the chamber of commerce doesn’t mention, is that lazy bastard stays here in summer, too. He lurks in the background, returning in somewhat weakened form, at any time. Generally, it goes like this:

October: for Halloween, temps are finally around a hundred, maybe ninety, and it feels so cool!

November: by the end, the daily high is somewhere in the mid to low eighties. These three days are what makes living here worth it!

December: temps rollercoaster from the mid sixties to high seventies with week-long spikes up to the mid eighties. Kids complain it’s almost too cold to wear flip-flops to school. It might sprinkle hard for a couple of days, a couple of times.

January: Temps in the sixties and mid- seventies with spikes up to eighty once or twice. Hard sprinkles, with two or three short bursts of actual rain until mid month. It only rains enough to set the dust on your car and will not rain until the next time you wash it. Or there’s a downpour the day you dare wear your suede shoes because the sky was clear and the weather channel showed you no storm systems within three states. Lying sadists.

February: Not much rain at all, very breezy at times, so you’re never comfortable no matter what you wear. High seventies by the end.

March: Here comes summer, high eighties up to mid nineties

April: Summer is here, you’re just in denial. Nineties with spikes to 100

May: Damned straight it’s summer. I will never have an outdoor birthday party, ever. 100 to 110

June: 105 to 115, though despair hasn’t set in. You don’t really remember what a cloud looks like, much less what they do.

July: 110-120 you vaguely remember what it was like to leave your home. The air hasn’t moved in weeks. Your shade-screened cactus has to be watered daily and it still gets burned in spots.

August: Yay! Monsoon season! 115 to 125 and more than enough rain for the humidity to keep your personal mold coating healthy and prevent you from ever taking a full breath.

September: Starts like august, but now you have to go out in the muck for school. Then it settles into 115, but dryer so that your house’s windows don’t fog and condensation no longer forms on the walls. It’s a chilly 110 by the end of the month.

17

Ashes, Ashes: Barstow?

I live in Denver. My father-in-law, a native, once* characterized the seasons here as “Winter. And July.”

Now there can be plenty of 70-degree days in the winter. Or not. Last year we had Thanksgiving dinner in the backyard. Apparently as a corollary, we had a 3rd of July barbecue where the temperatures sent us all inside it was so cold (windy, too), although by the 4th (yes, the next day) it was nice and warm. And then it got hotter and hotter, breaking a couple of long-standing records on its way to the end of July.

Now it feels and smells like fall. Current cricket rate: 22 chirps in 15 seconds. Add 40 for a temp of 62 degrees and then check w/thermometer. (Very close. It says 64 degrees.)

There must be a reason why I don’t live in Barstow but I can’t think of it.

*Okay, many many many times

18

It does vary some. Hunting season isn’t something most people consider around this part of the state, for example.
Southern end of the Lakes region in NH

Winter - November through mid-April…got to have time for 100" of snow, you know
Mud season (you think we’re kidding but it’s a state lotto game too) - Mid-April to Mid-May
Black Fly Season (also known as “Spring”) - Mid-May to mid-June
Summer - mid-June to mid-September
Fall - Mid-September to Halloween

19

In Panama, what is called locally the “summer” (verano), the dry season, runs from mid-December to mid-April. The “winter”(invierno) is the rest of the year.

mid-December-February. Early dry season. The trade winds start to blow and things start to dry out. The weather is ideal - about 82 F at mid-day, cool in the evenings, with light breezes cooling things off. There may be a thunderstorm once every two weeks or so. The mahagony trees on my block bloom and give off a rich sweet aroma.

March-mid-April. Late dry season. The trade winds slow a bit and things become a bit hotter, maybe 85 F at mid day. The hillsides become brown. Many trees have lost their leaves. A thunderstorm once a week. The golden guayacan, pink roble , and purple jacaranda trees bloom. Towards the end of the season smoke fills the air as farmers burn off their fields.

mid-April-August. Early rainy season: springtime! The rains start, slowly at first and then more frequently. There is a thunderstorm almost every day in the afternoon, but the rest of the day is clear. It cools off to about 80 F during the day. The trees put on new leaves, and many bloom. Birds begin to sing and then nest.

September. The “little dry season,” the veranillo The rains slack off for a few weeks but don’t stop.

October-mid December. Late rainy season. The time of the heaviest rains. Often several thunderstorms a day, occasionally all day rains. Everything begins to mold and rot.

mid-December: the trade winds begin again.

20

Actually, a very good guess, wow! I don’t think Barstow gets as relentlessly hot as we do but it’s so close as to require a photo finish. I am in the beautimous Imperial Valley, but my favorite new name is Bagdad on the Border. It better captures our scenic beauty and varied night life, I believe.