Joel Achenbach
of the Washington Post has not quite turned the corner with respect to spring,
and the seasons in general. You see, “season” is used in two distinct though
related ways in English. It can refer to four distinct weather/plant-life
conditions or to the four parts of the earth’s orbit around the sun. Given the
tilt of the Earth, the two are related but they do not occur together. While
Achenbach acknowledges that the vernal equinox typically on March 21st
“is a moment of time specified by the motion of the Earth around the sun,” he
refers to this as the official start of the meteorological spring. In actuality
it is not. In the Northern Hemisphere, meteorologists record data from
December, January and February as winter and March, April and May as spring. So
in March 2012, meteorologists could already conclude that the preceding winter
had been the fourth warmest since the record-keeping began.
The full essay is at "Confusing the Seasons."
