Point-of-order: Monsoon refers to wind, not rain. Heavy rains usually come with the wind, but that’s not what the monsoon is referring to.
Colibri, my father has become a bit obsessed lately about acquiring some property in Panama. How do you like it there? Where else have you lived as comparison?
Heh. I moved away from Colorado because I was sick of not having a winter. I guess it’s all in what you’re used to.
This is a funny thread - a lot of people want to say that their weather is the worst. Seeing as noone has chimed in from Alaska or other places farther north than me, I can call you all wusses 
Kansas City (and thereabouts).
Spring: March or April or May, depending.
Summer: May to September or October.
Fall: End of August to end of September or October.
Winter: End of October to end of February or March.
I’ve seen it snow in September and be 80+ degrees in March.
Spring: March & April
Early Summer: May
Triple-H (Hazy, Hot, and Humid): End of May to mid-September
Late Summer: mid-September & early-October
Fall: early-October to mid-December
Autumn (everything that was going to fall already has): end of December
Winter: Janurary to March
Although there was a freak blizzard one Veterans’ Day, it doesn’t really snow here until January. We even had a record high here for New Year’s weekend a couple of years ago.
Montreal:
Winter starts sometime in December, though I’ve had one or two green Christmases. Once it starts, it persists usually throughout March, often into April (I’ve had my last day of school in the snow before.)
Spring lasts through May, sometimes into June, before it gets very hot and humid.
Summer is usually a cycle of very hot and humid, broken up by thundershowers and a few days of lovely weather followed by v.h.&h. The warm weather can persist well into October. Thence autumn, which as I say can linger well into December.
Summer = mid-June to mid-September. Those are the months you can count on wearing shorts every day.
Fall = mid-September to Halloween.
Winter = Halloween to mid-March. We can get snow through the first week of June, but it’s not freezing cold every day.
Mud season (spring) = mid-March to mid-June.
Helena weather facts:
Historically, Helena has had snow recorded every day of the year except for July 10 and August 2nd.
In the last 125 years, there have been only three times when the temperature failed to drop below 70 degrees at night.
whistlepig
Yeah, Panama is booming right now. Lots of US retirees coming to Boquete in the western highlands, Bocas del Toro on the Caribbean, and the Panama City area. He better get in soon, since land prices are skyrocketing.
I love it here. Better climate than most of the US, both summer and winter, even in the lowlands, although in the highlands it’s springlike all the time. Panama has a strong American influence due to the long history with the Canal, and you can get most things that are available in the US. Lots of people speak English, especially in Bocas (though Spanish is still very useful of course). Lots of nature around - I can get into good rainforest a half-hour drive from downtown Panama City, and be in absolute wilderness in an hours flight. Some frustrations of course - I miss good movies, and music concerts other than salsa. But I wouldn’t move back to the US.
I’ve lived here 15 years, 2 years in the late 1970s and now since 1992. I’m from New York City, but have lived in Colorado, Oregon, and New Zealand and traveled in Canada, Latin America, Africa, India, and the South Pacific.
I live near Boise, Idaho. Typically, these are our seasons here:
Spring: March through June
Summer: July through September
Fall: October and November
Winter: December and January
I don’t know where to put February. It’s usually too warm to bear any semblance of winter, but it’s not quite spring, either. Perhaps February should be called sprinter.
Sunspace, I think June usually counts as late Spring. It doesn’t usually getting bloody fricking hot until July. Since it did get bloody fricking hot in June this summer, I vote to have summer end this week, and start autumn now. I want the temperature to drop to 23C in the daytime, with lows of 10-15C at night.
Lissla, who is fantasizing about October.
I think they’re working on it (beautiful low-humuduty day today!), but it may take a while…
In southwestern Ohio:
Typical of much of the northern half of the country, I suppose, the beginning of spring can seem to be anywhere from early of March to late April. A little bit of all four seasons is experienced in there. Generally, though, I’d say mid-March is the beginning of spring.
Summer is basically June throgh mid-September.
Autumn begins around then and ends sometime from late November to mid-December.
What remains is cold.
Spring: March, April, May
Summer: June, July, August
Autumn: September, October, November
Winter: December, January, February
In actuality Ireland is pretty much the land of changeable weather, with most days covering the cold, windy, rainy, damp, overcast end of the weather spectrum. Summer has a few days covering the slightly warmer, slightly less overcast end, and winter having a few more at the hail, thunder, snow, sleet end of things.
But, really it could be 20 degrees in January and snow in August, you just never know in this country.
May-October: Hot and windy.
November-April: Cold and windy, with occasional bouts of rainstorms.
Although cold and windy days can and do occur at random in the Hot and Windy season, and vice versa. It’s not unusual to have a spat of 80 degree days in February, then never get to the comfortable side of 70 for a few more months. The weather here is a giant tease.
Sea…sons?
We have hot and dry…and hotter and dryer.
The yang to San Francisco’s cold, foggy yin.
In the southern hemisphere the seasons are just the opposite, but the solstices and equinox occur at the same time. Seasons are determined by these events and not what the weather is like.
Quite incorrect. The astronomical definitions of “seasons” do not correspond to the real seasons as recognized by people in particular areas. We have quite well defined seasons here in Panama, which do not conform at all to the ones defined for the temperate zone. Our seasons are determined by the position of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, rather than the position of the sun.
Previously, in the pre-college world I lived in in NJ: Summer was summer break. Fall ran September to Thanksgiving and/or the first time I needed a heavy jacket walking home from school. Winter was ‘as long as I need a heavy jacket whilst walking a mile and a half’. Spring was ‘I no longer need a heavy jacket, and there’s green stuff again!’ until school let out in June.
Going to school out in Santa Fe complicates things, because the change in foliage is pretty absent compared to the east coast (since we’re in the middle of a desert), and regardless of season, any given day has an average temperature range of about 30 degrees (literally. There’ve been days where I’ll be wearing a fleece hoodie in the morning and by mid-afternoon, capris and a tank top. Then the temperature plummets when the sun goes down).
Excuse me, I didn’t see “astronomical” as opposed to “real” seasons in the title.
I believe the OP has some criteria that make this thread more a matter of “seasons” in terms of climate and weather than in the pure astronomical events.
It also has some links to other threads that were part of why this thread came into being.