Season Similarities: Winter & Spring, Summer & Fall

[Alolan_Apples]

This is the second part of my Season Similarity blog entries. Last time, I talked how spring is to summer and how fall is to winter. It's obvious that those seasons are very similar, but winter is quite similar to spring too. Same with summer being like fall. In my opinion, it sort of makes sense that winter is comparable to spring as summer is comparable to fall. To review what I talked about yesterday (Spring & Summer, Fall & Winter), one set of the seasons are warmer, longer days than nights, and less holidays, while the other set are cooler, shorter days than nights, and nore holidays. How are the relationships with these seasons?

Winter and Spring:​

The first two seasons to compare (but not contrast) here are the first two seasons of the year. With the exception of the last strip of December (Dec 21st to Dec 31st), all of the winter and spring are in the first half of the year, especially spring.

• Both have major Christian Holidays - The two major holidays to the Christian religion are Christmas and Easter. One was about the birth, and the other was about the resurrection. What's even more similar is that both holidays have a modern spirit that appear in our decorations. Santa Claus is to Christmas as the Easter Bunny is to spring. We don't have any of those for Valentine's, St. Patrick's Day, 4th of July, Halloween, or Thanksgivings. Likewise, depending on the Hebrew Calendar, Hanukkah can begin as late as in December 22nd to 27th. If that was the case, Hanukkah will be wholly within the winter while Passover (another major holiday) is in the season it's always part of - spring. So not only they have major Christian holidays, but they have major Jewish holidays that are a bit equivalent.
• Easter Season - the Easter season is defined by the period between Mardi Gras to Pentecost Sunday, but it's variable to the year. Easter is determined based on the Full Moon. The first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox is Easter. The earliest it could possibly be is March 22nd, while the latest is April 25th. In this case, Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) can be no earlier than February 4th while Pentecost Sunday can be no later than June 13th. Summer doesn't begin until June 21st, so the entire Easter Season is in winter and spring. And it's not possible for the entire season to be in just spring. Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday could be no later than March 9th and March 10th (respectively). Spring can't begin any earlier than March 20th.
• Both had bare branches or nearly bare branches - in the winter, branches are empty of leaves, but this varies by region. In spring, yes, we should have leaves grow by then, but the trees are sort of empty. They start growing flowers. When they close, they start growing leaves. They aren't full of leaves until late spring or early summer.
• Both start out cold - this is also true. Winter is obviously a cold season. Not just a cold season, but the cold season. Spring is when everything starts warming up, but at the beginning, we still have a few remnants of the cold weather. May is when we start having only warm or hot weather.
• Days get longer - I told you that I was going to talk about day length and contrasts with the seasons. Yesterday, I did discuss how in each set of seasons, one of them have longer days than nights and vice versa, as whatever is longer gets longer. While the other, which is similar to the first in how long the days or nights are, shortens what's longer. In both the winter and spring, days get longer while nights get shorter. In the winter, days are already shorter than nights, but it starts to get longer. By spring, days are longer than nights, and they will continue getting longer and longer.
• Second Semester in school - I know I shouldn't be listing this because it sounds like they are similar for being a certain time of the year, but I decided to talk about this. In most of the United States, the school year is divided into two semesters, the first semester, and the second semester. The second semester is otherwise known as the spring semester. Even so, the only two seasons in the second half of the school year are winter and spring.

Summer and Fall:​

The next two seasons are in the second half of the year. Despite having the first part of summer being in June, most of the summer are in the second half of the year. All of fall is in the second half as well. In fact, it is in the last third of the year, and almost entirely in the last quarter of the year. They appear to compare too.

• Both have festive American holidays - while we exclude Christmas and Easter from the American holiday list since they have nothing to do with America, 4th of July, Halloween, and Thanksgivings are all festive holidays in the second half of the year, and before the winter solstice. Yes, Halloween is celebrated worldwide, but people are more hyped into Halloween in America more than everywhere else. And Thanksgivings (as defined on the 4th Thursday of November) is exclusive to the US. Independence Day is also exclusive in th US.
• 9/11 and Pearl Harbor - two of the days where American flags are always half-mast are in September and December (respectively). While 9/11 was not too long ago (actually, it is, but as long as the attack during World War II), Pearl Harboe was even longer. 9/11 is in a fall month, but before the equinox, while Pearl Harbor was in a winter month, but before the solstice. Coincidentally, 9/11 was in the same month World War II began and World War II ended, but that's on another note.
• Trees are full of leaves - while the leaves start growing in the spring, they should be fully grown by summer. And fall, the season when leaves start falling off, don't start out with bare branches. In fact, leaves still stay on the trees until mid to late fall.
• Both start out hot - now this is another similarity how the opposite seasons are the opposite in. After a long and hot season, everything starts cooling down in the fall, but it's still warm very early. Summer, as it starts out hot, continues to stay hot.
• Days get shorter - while the days get longer in the first half of the year, they get shorter in the summer and fall while nights get longer. It's kind of funny that summer, the season all about the sun, gets less sun day after day until its end. Days are longer than nights in the summer, but they get shorter. While in the fall, that's when nights are longer than days. And they continue getting longer until the winter solstice. I guess it not just called "fall" because of leaves falling off. It's also the fall of the year (fall as in ending), fall of temperatures (dropping temperatures), and fall of daylight hours (nights are longer and will get longer.
• First Semester in school - while the second half of the year is in the winter and spring, the first half is in the summer and the fall. August and September are mostly summer, but as it gets later in the semester, it is fall. Even Christmas break begins before the solstice, so the first semester is in the summer and fall only.

That's it for today. Tomorrow, we will go over the similarities and differences between the opposite seasons.