What is winter?

[David Bowie]

From:    Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>

> A newspaper article today quotes a meteorologist of the National
> Weather Service who said that "althought winter officially runs from
> Dec 21 to Mar 21, forecasters mostly define it as Dec through Feb."

> Forecasters are changing the seasons.  First I've heard about that.

Every once in a while, the weather page of the Orlando Sentinel would
talk about the difference between "astronomical seasons" or "solar
seasons" (i saw both) on the one hand, which were defined by the
solstices and equinoxes, and "meteorological seasons", which were
defined by the change of months.

That was the first i'd ever heard about seasons changing with months
rather than the relative tilt of the earth with respect to the sun,
but i saw it several times while i lived there (2003-2009).

David Bowie

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