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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org)

Traditional season divisions

Traditional temperate seasonal changes on a city road in Manchester, UK:

Spring Summer Autumn Winter

Traditional seasons are reckoned by insolation, with summer being the quarter of the year withthe greatest insolation and winter the quarter with the least. These seasons begin about four

weeks earlier than the meteorological seasons and 7 weeks earlier than the astronomical seasons.

In traditional reckoning, the seasons begin at the cross-quarter days. The solstices and equinoxesare the midpoints of these seasons. For example, the days of greatest and least insolation areconsidered the "midsummer" and "midwinter" respectively.

This reckoning is used by various traditional cultures in the Northern Hemisphere, including East

Asian and Irish cultures.[citation needed]

In Iran, Afghanistan and some other parts ofMiddle East thebeginning of the astronomical spring is the beginning of the new year which is called Nowruz.

So, according to traditional reckoning, winter begins between 5 November and 10 November,

Samhain, (ldng or rittou); spring between 2 February and 7 February, Imbolc,

(lchn or risshun); summer between 4 May and 10 May, Beltane, (lxi or rikka); and

autumn between 3 August and 10 August, Lughnasadh, (lqi or rissh). The middle of

each season is considered Mid-winter, between 20 December and 23 December, (dngzh

or touji); Mid-spring, between 19 March and 22 March, (chnfn or shunbun); Mid-

summer, between 19 June and 23 June, (xizh or geshi); and Mid-autumn, between 21

September and 24 September, (qifn or shbun).

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Spring

Spring is one of the four temperateseasons, the transition period between winter andsummer. Spring and "springtime" refer to the season, and broadly to ideas of rebirth,renewal and regrowth. The specific definition of the exact timing of "spring" variesaccording to local climate, cultures and customs. At the spring equinox, days are closeto 12 hours long with day length increasing as the season progresses.

Summer

Summer is the warmest of the four temperateseasons, between spring and autumn. Atthe summer solstice, the days are longest and the nights are shortest, with day-lengthdecreasing as the season progresses after the solstice. The date of the beginning ofsummer varies according to climate, culture, and tradition, but when it is summer in thesouthern hemisphere it is winter in the northern hemisphere, and vice versa.

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Autumn

Autumn is one of the four temperateseasons. Autumn marks the transition fromsummer into winter usually in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March (SouthernHemisphere) when the arrival of night becomes noticeably earlier.

The equinoxes might be expected to be in the middle of their respective seasons, but

temperature lag (caused by the thermal latency of the ground and sea) means thatseasons appear later than dates calculated from a purely astronomical perspective. Theactual lag varies with region. Some cultures regard the autumnal equinox as "mid-autumn", others with a longer lag treat it as the start of autumn. [1] Meteorologists (andmost of the temperate countries in the southern hemisphere)[2] use a definition based onmonths, with autumn being September, October and November in the northernhemisphere,[3] and March, April and May in the southern hemisphere.

Winter

Winter is the coldest season of the year in temperate climates, between autumn andspring. At the winter solstice, the days are shortest and the nights are longest, with dayslengthening as the season progresses after the solstice.