The Seasons

[porphyry]

We remember four seasons from our childhoods. The earth was snow cover from Thanksgiving to the February thaw, and often again in March or even April. There was a beautiful green Spring and then a Summer that was hot and steamy, finally there was a clear blue Fall with jackets on in September. Until the past few years I can’t recall a summer that didn’t see a cold front cool two or three days in August down to the 70s.

Now there are two seasons; we alternate between the Jungle and the Tundra. Hot humid days with highs between 90° and 100° (sometimes even 105°) begin in May and carry on until the beginning of October. The other season is wet and gray with highs in the 40s or 50s; if there is snow that lasts a whole day that is rare. What was once Spring and Autumn lasts two or three weeks between the two.

Comments

[mercyorbemoaned.livejournal.com]

What I remember from my childhood is being told to go enjoy the foggy summer and then being told to sit inside at a school desk when the weather got sunny and beautiful. I also remember the 1982-1983 El Niño vividly.

[leopold-paula-b.livejournal.com]

Same thing was noticed by a Viennese journalist a few years ago. Her even used a similar expression, saying that now there is only "Arctic" and "Tropic".

[As for myself, I'm too abstracted a cloudwatcher, with a bad memory for these things and too temperamental about weather in general to be a good observer and judge of these things. It very easily gets too hot for me in summer and then I'm just off for the North. (But I've always felt like this.) And in winter my main problem is the darkness and clouds, so that every spring I really relive again at the sight of the first blue sky of the year.

I friend of mine feels the same and has written a song about it ("lover of fine weather"), the chorus containing the great line: "My feelings correspond to what the clouds tell me".]

[petrusplancius.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. Still four seasons here though, the two main seasons and the two transitional seasons which have a character of their own. Winters are warmer, snow is rare, at least off the high hills.

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

You are absolutely right. It seems like summer lasts *forever.*

[lordtangent.livejournal.com]

I've noticed this too, but this year at least there's been a proper autumn in the air for at least a few weeks. Last year the warm weather lasted well into January, when it suddenly started to turn cold. Odd.