Lesson
first, then my school closing prediction:
This
morning I opened my eyes to the sound of the Weather Guesser on the radio
announcing the first day of Meteorological Spring.
That
opened my eyes wide, because I am not used to hearing a broadcast Weather
Guesser being factually correct. They
usually go with the incorrect “spring starts on March 21 (the equinox)” and “summer
starts on June 21 (the solstice).”
There
are actually three common ways of organizing the seasons. The one that has been popularized on the
media is the astronomical organization. Because
different stars are visible at different times of the year, astronomers do
divide the seasons by astronomical events – the solstices and equinoxes. But unless you spend your nights studying the
cosmos this system really doesn’t match up with real life.
To
meteorologists today really is the first day of spring. Meteorologists divide the year by
temperature: The three coldest months
(December, January, February) represent winter and the three warmest months
(June, July, August) are a meteorologist’s summer. This does make sense in a way that we can
understand. Cold is winter in the
northern hemisphere and summer is hot.
To
people more in touch with nature than most Americans are these days, the
seasons were based on everyday observations. Daylight increases until it affects plants and
animals (maple sap has been running for a while and going outside now exposes
our ears to hundreds of bird-language equivalents of “hey baby, lets mate!,”
skunks and woodchucks have bred, and lambs are growing in the bellies of their
mothers. Under the snow bulbs are
starting to push upwards. Really.)
Nature is waking up and we called this spring.
When
the daylight decreases and plants start to shut down for the year, it is autumn.
When
the last leaves have fallen and the gardens are dead, it is winter.
The
dates in the northern hemisphere that match these natural occurrences come approximately
halfway between the astronomical events.
Remember that Shakespeare wrote a play about the longest day of the year
(the solstice) and named it “MID-Summer Night’s Dream”, not “First Day of Summer
Night’s Dream”.
Halfway
between the winter solstice and the spring equinox is Groundhog Day / Candlemas
when nature starts to wake up. The
Biosphere’s spring.
Halfway
between the spring equinox and the solstice is May Day / Beltane when flowers
open (and people used to dance around phallic symbols and then go out into the
fields to demonstrate to Mother Nature what she should be doing with their
crops.) This was seen as the first day
of summer as nature started producing flowers and baby animals.
Halfway
between the solstice and the autumn equinox the plants react to decreasing
daylight by producing fruit and seeds and we celebrated Lammas (Loaf Mass) as
we ate the first bread from the new wheat.
Autumn begins.
And
halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice comes All Hallow’s
Eve, the celebration of the dead, as the harvest is over and nature
begins the
winter sleep.
End
of the lesson. Now on to a difficult
school closing prediction. The snow
storm has moved faster than originally expected. Rather than reaching central Connecticut
around mid afternoon, the first flakes started to fall around 10:00 am. The storm will end earlier also. By sunrise the storm will be gone and the
cleanup will begin.
Could
schools open on time? Possibly. But given the amount of snow already on the
roads it might take a while to clear the new accumulation. So, get up early anyway to shovel your way
out, but I think there is a 65% chance of a delayed school opening on Monday,
March 2.
As
of right now, it looks like your commute to school on Wednesday will be wet and
slushy, but on time.
