There's a concept of "astronomical seasons", which I don't know whether is specifically American or not. Scientifically speaking, winter and summer start on the respective solstices, and spring and autumn start on the respective equinoxes. Does this fail to quite match up to how people socially or casually think of the seasons? Well, the summer solstice is also known as "midsummer day", so the scientific definitions don't line up with historical ones, much less current social ones.
In the absence of the astronomical definitions, when does winter start? Probably different times for different climes, to start with, but even in one location, does winter start when the weather turns "winterish", or what? When stores put out their winter catalogs? When most people stop wearing fashions that look fall-like? Certainly most people experience no cognitive dissonance speaking the sentence, "Winter has come early this year," when speaking of the weather, regardless of whether they know the astronomical defintion, at least not here in the US.
I think we tend to consider the start of school the start of autumn even though television newscasters will mention the "official start of autumn" a few weeks later, and winter as starting closer to Christmas or closer to Thanksgiving (US: fourth Thursday in November; Canada: second Monday in October) depending on the weather and how close one lives to a ski resort. "Spring has sprung" by Easter regardless of what the local flora are doing, but generally whenever there are lots of buds or a few leaves showing on previously bare trees and the weather is more light-sweater than overcoat ... and in my neck of the woods this often corresponds more or less to the vernal equinox, but there have been years "spring" showed up a month early in the weather and in people's moods ... and times when it doesn't really Feel Like Spring until late April. Summer usually starts when school lets out, a few weeks before the solstice that marks it scientifically. So depending on where you live, the psycho-social seasons might have different lengths.
It's kind of like how we have two distinct phenomena called "marriage" (civil and religious) that get confused in folks's minds and even more confused in conversation; we have well-defined astronomical seasons and "everybody knows what we mean" (even though we all mean something slightly different) casual-conversation, socially-referenced seasons that have the same names.
Personally I've always thought that the astronomical seasons should've been defined such that the solstices and equinoxes would mark their midpoints, not their beginnings and ends. So Christmas would be near the middle of "winter", and school would start near the start of autumn the way we feel like it does, instead of a few weeks before the end of summer ... Midsummer would still feel a little odd 'cause I'm used to thinking of sometime in July as the "middle of summer", but oh well.
*shrug* But nobody asked me when they wrote the definitions.
But here in NE, winter rarely does start before the Winter Solstice. Calling it the middle of winter makes no sense, because then, conceptually, spring would start mid-February. Riiiiiiigh. I refuse on principle to call any part of February "spring" while I'm in NE.
Heck, we all know spring starts, if we're lucky, in the last week of April and runs about one month. ˙
Of course I should have remembered the astronomical seasons. What I still wonder, among other reasons for the ones you list, is why are these definitions repeated in the civil calender. In Finland, for instance, the calender will simply say "winter solstice", "spring equinox", and so on. In the back pages there will be a table listing the statistical average and variation of the actual starts of the seasons - these being defined climatically, and are only determinable post factum.
It is aggravating, indeed, that one cannot be everywhere putting things to right, when one clearly is the best informed one to make the decisions. Been there, too. ;)
(no subject)
In the absence of the astronomical definitions, when does winter start? Probably different times for different climes, to start with, but even in one location, does winter start when the weather turns "winterish", or what? When stores put out their winter catalogs? When most people stop wearing fashions that look fall-like? Certainly most people experience no cognitive dissonance speaking the sentence, "Winter has come early this year," when speaking of the weather, regardless of whether they know the astronomical defintion, at least not here in the US.
I think we tend to consider the start of school the start of autumn even though television newscasters will mention the "official start of autumn" a few weeks later, and winter as starting closer to Christmas or closer to Thanksgiving (US: fourth Thursday in November; Canada: second Monday in October) depending on the weather and how close one lives to a ski resort. "Spring has sprung" by Easter regardless of what the local flora are doing, but generally whenever there are lots of buds or a few leaves showing on previously bare trees and the weather is more light-sweater than overcoat ... and in my neck of the woods this often corresponds more or less to the vernal equinox, but there have been years "spring" showed up a month early in the weather and in people's moods ... and times when it doesn't really Feel Like Spring until late April. Summer usually starts when school lets out, a few weeks before the solstice that marks it scientifically. So depending on where you live, the psycho-social seasons might have different lengths.
It's kind of like how we have two distinct phenomena called "marriage" (civil and religious) that get confused in folks's minds and even more confused in conversation; we have well-defined astronomical seasons and "everybody knows what we mean" (even though we all mean something slightly different) casual-conversation, socially-referenced seasons that have the same names.
Personally I've always thought that the astronomical seasons should've been defined such that the solstices and equinoxes would mark their midpoints, not their beginnings and ends. So Christmas would be near the middle of "winter", and school would start near the start of autumn the way we feel like it does, instead of a few weeks before the end of summer ... Midsummer would still feel a little odd 'cause I'm used to thinking of sometime in July as the "middle of summer", but oh well.
*shrug* But nobody asked me when they wrote the definitions.
(no subject)
Heck, we all know spring starts, if we're lucky, in the last week of April and runs about one month.
˙
spring
(no subject)
And the Neptune Festival is held in September, on the beach. Plenty of swimmers. So 21 September certainly isn't mid-fall there.
(no subject)
It is aggravating, indeed, that one cannot be everywhere putting things to right, when one clearly is the best informed one to make the decisions. Been there, too. ;)