Why does the U.S. use the solstices and equinoxes to mark the beginning of seasons?

Question

I'm a U.S. citizen, and this is something that puzzles me at least twice a year. The solstices are usually mentioned on the radio, on the news on television and in newspapers. The media--and our citizens--are always saying that June 21, for instance, is the beginning of summer. By my logic, it's the middle of summer, and the beginning came 1 1/2 months before. On what some call the cross-quarter days.

Apparently, most of the world does consider solstices and equinoxes as the middle of seasons. Hence Shakespeare's play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Which would then refer to the Summer Solstice, probably on June 21 or June 22, by our calendar.

Answer 1

This has always bothered me too...I think the same way you do. The only explanation I've ever come up with is that there's always a lag between the calendar dates and the warmest and coldest parts of the year. Dec 21 may be the shortest day of the year, but the coldest weather is actually about a month and a half later, in early February. Similarly, the warmest days of summer are not around June 21, but early in August. But then, so much of our calendar and time systems are illogical, so why not this one too?

Answer 2

The solstice and the equinox are not that important to modern man, but to ancient man they were hugely important. They determined when it was the time to plant and when it was the time to harvest.

Stonehenge, artifacts in ancient Egypt, the Mayan Calendar and other artifacts are relics of a time when we didn't have the modern calendar. Back then knowing when to plant and when to harvest was not just important, it was crucial. If you messed up your calculations then your tribe could starve.

The earliest religions were typically solar based and were designed to help the people determine these two important events. The job was so important that priests were invented to care for the calendar, to maintain it and to make sure that the planting and harvesting times weren't missed.

Since those ancient times things have changed a lot and gotten more complicated, especially religion. But, it all started out as a way to determine when to plant and when to harvest crops.

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solstice
"A solstice occurs twice a year, whenever Earth's axis tilts the most toward or away from the Sun, causing the Sun to be farthest north or south at noon...

The solstices, together with the equinoxes, are related to the seasons. In some languages they are considered to start or separate the seasons; in others they are considered to be center points (in English, in the Northern hemisphere, for example, the period around the June solstice is known as midsummer, and Midsummer's Day is 24 June, three or four days after the solstice itself)."

Answer 3

In the US and most the countries, and since some thosand years, many primitive cultures used to define the Summer after the longest day of the year (north to equator line). The Winter begins in the shorter day. Spring and Falls, after the equinoxes (when the day=night). This definition is astronomical (and astrological). They use those days (soltices and equinoxes) because it was easy to determine the longest or shorter days. The Soltices were old referencial days, older than the first day of a year, older than our Gregorian calendar, or the Julianne, or the Mayan's, or the Aztec's one. The Stonehenge and other prehistoric monuments were builded to define the Summer first days.

To change such definitions would be as harder as to change the seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, months and the AC/DC years.
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"However, because the seasonal lag is less than 1/8 of a year (except near large bodies of water), the meteorological start of the season, which is based on average temperature patterns, precedes by about three weeks the start of the astronomical season. According to meteorology, summer is the whole months of December, January, and February in the Southern Hemisphere, and the whole months of June, July, and August in the Northern Hemisphere. Today, the meteorological reckoning of the seasons is gaining broader acceptance [citation needed], with Australia using this system predominately, but the astronomical definition is still more frequently used in other parts of the West.

In Ireland, summer starts as early as May 1 even though July, August and September are the warmest months there.[citation needed] In some countries, summer begins on June 1,[citation needed] while in others it arrives as late as July 1.[citation needed] In general, seasonal changes occur later in coastal regions, so countries close to the oceans go for a later start to summer (with the exception of Ireland) than inland ones. Summer is commonly viewed as the season with the longest (and warmest) days of the year, in which the daylight predominates, through varying degrees.[citation needed
Elsewhere, however, the solstices and the equinoxes are taken to mark the mid-points, not the beginnings, of the seasons. In Chinese astronomy, for example, summer starts on or around May 6, with the jiéqì (solar term) known as Lixia i.e. "establishment of summer". An example of Western usage would be William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, where the play takes place over the shortest night of the year, which is the summer solstice" [wiki/summer]

Answer 4

Here in the US the Weather service defines the entire months of June, July, and August as summer, with the other seasons made up of whole months. Astronomically summer begins on the solstice. Many older agricultural cultures call the middle of the warm growing season Midsummer (near June 21) hence the name. It would now be fall to them because it is the harvest season. What the definition of a season is depends on the context in which its used. The press just likes the astronomical dates.

Answer 5

Nobody has gotten it right yet so here you go...

Equinox is when the Sun is directly over the equator. This happens twice each year around March 20 and September 22.

Northern solstice (called summer solstice in the northern hemisphere) is when the Sun is above the most northern latitude. This is called the Tropic of Cancer. It happens around around June 21. And marks the day with the longest hours of sunlight in the northern hemisphere.

Southern solstice (called winter solstice in the northern hemisphere) is when the Sun is above the most southern latitude. This is called the Tropic of Capricorn. It happens around December 22 and marks the day with the shortest hours of sunlight in the northern hemisphere.

It has nothing to do with hot or cold days or crops.

Answer 6

Uh...dude? Like, everyone uses these astronomical dates to mark the seasons, not just the U.S. Anyway, if you're trusting the half-wits in the media to provide accurate scientific information, then you need to, like, take a big step backwards and take a deep breath here. I've never seen anything in the papers or on TV here (in Texas) claiming that June 21st is the first day of summer--so I think maybe you just misunderstood something.

Still, remember that the media--world wide--was celebrating the beginning of the 21st century a FULL year too early (on Dec., 31, 1999 instead of Dec., 31, 2000). We all knew they were idiots and had gotten in wrong, but the media persisted and the world partied its a** off a year early.

The moral of the story is: Don't EVER rely upon the media to get scientific information correct. Sometimes it's honest errors on their part, but they'd rather, like, burn in perdition before admitting they were wrong.

Answer 7

I grew up (in Australia) thinking of Dec-Jan-Feb as summer, Mar-Apr-May as autumn, Jun-Jul-Aug as winter and Sep-Oct-Nov as spring. It wasn't until I visited the USA as an adult that I came across the use of the solstices and equinoxes to mark the beginning and end of the seasons. In the far north of Australia it is my understanding that people think more in terms of "the wet" and "the dry" rather than 4 seasons. I also think I've heard somewhere that in Palestine and surrounding areas they used to talk of 6 different seasons. So 4 seasons is something that perhaps only denizens of temperate latitudes would recognise. I imagine people who live near a polar circle (mainly the Artic circle I guess) might have a different view of seasons as well. I have read somewhere that the Celts recognised the cross-quarters and thought of them as the dividing lines between seasons.

Answer 8

It's not just the US. This is standard in the entire Western world, and dates back to the ancient Greeks.

Some cultures not descended from the Greeks (like the Celts) have different traditions. And in fact, the choice of when seasons begin and end is rather arbitrary, so the solstices make as much sense as any other.

Answer 9

THERE are four seasons, two solstices and two equinoxes.
2plus2=4 spring and fall have one equinox each, winter and summer have one solstice each, no matter where your location in EARTH.
because of the alignment with the sun and earths position is how seasons are defined, specifically the earths position relative to the sun

Answer 10

It relies upon on the area the place you reside and your concept of the seasons (diverse in diverse factors of the international). In Singapore, there are no marked seasons yet purely the attitude of solar as you observe out of your abode (or room). interior the extreme latitudes, wanting the Polar circles seasons hit one interior the attention. I recommend you settle on it your self via preserving a mag or diary. In summer season the diurnal maxima & minima of temperatures shift to bigger end. In wintry climate they the two shift decrease. interior the Spring and Autumn seasons, the hollow between maximum and minimum temperatures lengthens, making one to disclose inadvertently, to temperature swings that tells upon the physique (physiologically). In approximately seventy one years (in 2 existence circumstances), the "equinoces and solstices" develop via a million Calender day via precession of Equinoxes. interior the medium term it impacts our definition of seasons, wanting to recast periodically.