Seasons of the Year

Recently, a few of us were having a discussion on when Spring starts. It began when a friend, backed by many colleagues saying that the first day of Spring is the 1st of February, which is based on an old Celtic calendar, and they work their argument on that. My argument, based on meterological facts on average monthly temperatures, is that Spring starts in March. In Westport, people consider May to be the start of Summer and August being the start of Autumn, despite the fact that August has a higher monthly average temperature than May. Not too many people backed me on my argument; even the educational system in Ireland either still teaches or used to teach children that Spring commences on the 1st of February. You can debate on this issue.

Isn't it the first day of February on the Celtic calendar on the basis that the winter solstice is basically the middle of winter, so winter should be (roughly) equal lengths either side of the solstice?

The only other thing I can contribute was that on an episode of Q.I., they were asked what is it that travels north (in the UK) at a speed of eight miles per hour, and the answer, which they didn't get, was 'spring'.

There's a lengthy thread on this somewhere...

I think it should start on March too, giving you june,july,august for summer, surely they are the most likely months in ireland to see something resembling summer!

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Originally Posted by osarusan

Isn't it the first day of February on the Celtic calendar on the basis that the winter solstice is basically the middle of winter, so winter should be (roughly) equal lengths either side of the solstice?.

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Spot on, but only in Ireland I think. I think everywhere else in the northern hemisphere, spring starts with March, cos it's more based on weather (with the seasons starting on the solstice/equinox). I think our way makes far more sense. It's also kind of the reason why Christmas is on 25 December, cos that was an old pagan festival to mark the passing of the half-way point of winter, meaning that things would be getting easier for the following six months.

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Originally Posted by EAFC_rdfl

I think it should start on March too, giving you june,july,august for summer, surely they are the most likely months in ireland to see something resembling summer!

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Check out the Met Eireann website and check out the average maximum temperature for each month. The average in Dublin for May from 1961-1990 was 14.2C while the August average was 18.6C. Based on the Celtic calendar, which I don't follow, the first month of Summer is cooler than the first month of Autumn, which does not make sense to me.

The point is the seasons in Ireland are based on length of daylight, not temperature. The weather here is far too unreliable for that. In addition, in an agricultural community - which Ireland was up to, arguably, as recent as 50 years ago - daylight was much more important than temperature as daylight dictates the number of working hours available.

You could argue August feels more summer than autumn, but equally you could argue that November clearly isn't autumn and February clearly isn't winter - you can already see a bit of brightness left at close of work time.

And ultimately, what does it really mean to say "I think it should start on March too, giving you june,july,august for summer"? The weather is what the weather is; how man groups time is utterly irrelevant in that regard.

What does it actually matter what the season is though? Does it really affect anything?

I assume it was originally for the grouping of agricultural tasks - sowing in spring, growing in summer, reaping in autumn and waiting for the cols and snow to go away in autumn. So yeah, now the concept of seasons is probably unnecessary.