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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

Seasons have gotten warmer or colder but I don't think they've shifted.

No matter how much colder or snowier it used to be in December, it was that much even worse at the start of February. December has never been "midwinter".

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I'm not sure about England, but in Ireland and possibly other Celtic countries, Winter is traditionally taken to be November, December and January, thus Christmas is just slightly past mid-winter.

Traditionally and currently winter in England is December, January and February.

Interesting! From reading up on this, this seems to be "meteorological winter" which makes me think its not an old tradition. I think it's likely that the terms mid-winter and mid-summer come from a Celtic tradition similar to that still observed in Ireland.

The fact that Celtic spring then starts Feb 1 is... well, that's just wild. In Ireland, February's average low temperatures are colder than January's! [1]

But apparently that's indeed the long-standing date for the festival to mark the start of spring [2]. Guess those are some chilly festivities!

[1] https://www.climatestotravel.com/climate/ireland/dublin

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbolc

In my lifetime the seasons in Ireland were never very distinct. I remember thinking it was odd that spring wasn't much different from winter, and that autumn was often marginally warmer than summer, but living in a continental climate now I can see how the Irish seasons make no sense at all. In the US there tends to be constant mildly cold weather until around the 3rd week in December or so, then it gets noticeably colder. I never experienced that in Ireland.

That's the period between Samhain and Imbolc. That calendar is based on the amount of light. Samhain (Halloween) is the dey halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice, and Imbolc is the day halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.

In those days the amount of light available was a huge issue and feast days were marked around the days the light shifted, as well as shifts in behaviour. For example the harvest work would traditionally begin the day afer Samhain, halfway between the summer solstice (Midsummer) and the autumn equinox.

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