iajanus posted:

It is summer in December, and (although I've picked it up reasonably recently) it's still bizarre to me that other places don't have the same understanding of what constitutes seasons (eg. in Australia summer is strictly defined as 1/12-28/2, autumn is 1/3-31/5, etc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season#Australasian_seasons). It seems such a fundamental thing that's drilled into you as a kid that it's mindboggling that there's any other way of thinking about it.

bewilderment posted:

I never realised other nations don't have their seasons start on a fixed date like Australia does.

Like, obviously we don't expect it to start being cold and rainy as soon as June 1st hits, but that's when winter 'officially' starts and I just assumed that in the Northern Hemisphere everyone knew that for them, June 1st is when summer officially starts.

YYZ posted:

In '6 Foot 7 Foot' by Lil Wayne, the line: "bitch, real Gs move in silence like lasagna"

Because the G in lasagna is silent. Christ it's taken me like 6 years to realise this isn't just random gibberish

bewilderment posted:

I never realised other nations don't have their seasons start on a fixed date like Australia does.

Like, obviously we don't expect it to start being cold and rainy as soon as June 1st hits, but that's when winter 'officially' starts and I just assumed that in the Northern Hemisphere everyone knew that for them, June 1st is when summer officially starts.

Fizbin posted:

The US doesn't have fixed dates for the beginning of seasons, but only because they're defined as starting on the solstices and equinoxes- March 20, June 21, September 22, and December 21 this year.

Baronjutter posted:

Only Korea has 4 seasons, did you know? And lakes.

Jerry Cotton posted:

Summer starts when the daily average temperature is over 10 degrees.

e: Or maybe it's mean temperature who knows I'm not a mathmo.

Iron Crowned posted:

The school year in the USA is basically based upon farm work

EmmyOk posted:

Surely it starts at the same time everywhere but rather than a certain date it starts when summer ends and ends when summer starts. In Oz it's summer during December etc. right?

Osama Dozen-Dongs posted:

That's nonsense tho, the Italian gn is a palatalized nn. This Lil Wayne character seems somewhat uneducated.

Fizbin posted:

The US doesn't have fixed dates for the beginning of seasons, but only because they're defined as starting on the solstices and equinoxes- March 20, June 21, September 22, and December 21 this year.

Besesoth posted:

The US doesn't have official fixed dates for the beginning of seasons, period; the common understanding of seasons beginning on the solstices and equinoxes is drawn from astrology. The period between the June solstice and the September equinox is referred to as "summer" in astronomy for convenience, and likewise September-December as "autumn", etc., and as astrology (that is, tacky dollar-store knock-off astronomy) gained popularity in the 60s, so did its seasonal definitions.

Likewise, June 1-August 31 "summer", etc. are meteorological conveniences.

Before the 20th century we'd have been laughed at for saying summer begins in June; the traditional holiday three weeks into June is Midsummer, after all.

kazil posted:

The US is old

Europe posted:

lol

Hyperlynx posted:

But astrology aside, aren't the equinoxes the actual points in our orbit around the sun where the northern and southern hemisphere are getting the same amount of light, and the one is going to get colder and the other warmer? It makes far more sense to me to define the seasons by that. And I'm Australian

Memento posted:

Phlegmish posted:

I'm pretty sure Summer officially starts on June 21st here...at least, I thought I was, now I'm wondering if it doesn't change from year to year.

quote:

For the Jawoyn people, from around Katherine near south east Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, six seasons are described in the tropical zone in which they live:

- January–February: Summer (temperate zone), Wet (tropical zone), Jiorrk, the wet season
- March: Autumn (temperate zone), Wet(tropical zone) Bungarung, the end of the rains
- April–May: Autumn (temperate zone), Dry (tropical zone) Jungalk, the hot start of the dry
- June–July–August: Winter(temperate zone), Dry (tropical zone), Malaparr, the cooler, dry
- September–October: Spring (temperate zone), Dry (tropical zone), Worrwopmi, the humid time
- November–December: Spring/Summer (temperate zone), Wet (tropical zone), Wakaringding, the first rains

Besesoth posted:

The US doesn't have official fixed dates for the beginning of seasons, period;

rydiafan posted:

I live in the US and my calendar has a "first day of Spring" on it.

kazil posted:

I knew some jackass would pick up on this. Old fashioned? The US has been pretty much constant since the writing and ratification of the constitution. Many countries in Europe changed significantly following Napoleon and the World Wars. That's why everyone there uses metric and doesn't build their entire system around harvesting crops.

Snowglobe of Doom posted:

The very top end of Australia is near-equatorial tropics so they really only have the wet/monsoon season and the dry season. The indigenous population had their own seasons:


Wakaringding is a great word for a season, I wish we had Wakaringding down here in the south.

Memento posted:

Equinoxes and solstices are just to do with the length of the day. Equi-nox = equal night. Sol-stice = sun still (the sun's declination appears to stay in place instead of getting lower or higher, like it had been for the last three months).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equinox posted:

An equinox is the moment in which the plane of Earth's equator passes through the center of the Sun's disk,[2] which occurs twice each year, around 20 March and 23 September.

On an equinox, day and night are of approximately equal duration all over the planet. They are not exactly equal, however, due to the angular size of the sun and atmospheric refraction. To avoid this ambiguity, the word equilux is sometimes (but rarely) used to mean a day in which the durations of light and darkness are equal.[3][note 1] See Length of equinoctial day and night for further discussion.

Besesoth posted:

Sure, but that's what I mean by an "astronomical convenience"; I'm not sure how much sense it makes in the everyday world to define "summer" as "the part of the year when it starts getting colder and darker".

Sentient Data posted:

I think the lack of rigid season dates is because there's nothing tied directly to the seasons here, they're just kind of a background thing. Hell, we don't even have an official harvest festival day which seems weird since it's such an agrarian country

InediblePenguin posted:

Thanksgiving is a harvest festival

Sentient Data posted:

Nah, I'm from the states, I just said "official" since thanksgiving was taught more as a "don't be racist to natives" day when I was a kid

EmmyOk posted:

We were taught in school that it's when all the monsters came out so you had to dress up as a monster to blend in so they wouldn't eat the harvest.