Spring!

[thegillabbeygowl]

More like the springs are worn on poor old Finbarr.

 

[Crankycorner]

PROC shut down for 15 hours because some people thought today is the start of spring. It couldn’t cope with such ridiculousness.

 

[El Guapo]

Meteorological Spring starts on February 1st. I heard Nuala Carey saying so on RTE weather so it must be true.

Other way around.

Meteorological Spring us March, April and May. So met eireann go off this

Celtic Spring is imbolc to Bealainne so Feb, March and April. Thats why we all learned this as being spring at school

 

[SoundMan]

Other way around.

Meteorological Spring us March, April and May. So met eireann go off this

Celtic Spring is imbolc to Bealainne so Feb, March and April. Thats why we all learned this as being spring at school

What exactly is Meteorological Spring - apart from some kind of pretendy highbrow title. Is it that there's a marked change in weather/sunlight/alignment of the planets/what?

Most people just want to know when the days have become a bit brighter, the flowers are begining to open, the animals are frolicking and the sap is rising

 

[El Guapo]

What exactly is Meteorological Spring - apart from some kind of pretendy highbrow title. Is it that there's a marked change in weather/sunlight/alignment of the planets/what?

Most people just want to know when the days have become a bit brighter, the flowers are begining to open, the animals are frolicking and the sap is rising

AFAIK meterological seasons set the three hottest months by mean temperature as summer and the three coldest as winter, leaving the in between ones as Spring and Autumn. so sets Summer as June, July and Aug and hence spring March april and May.

The Celtic one is astronomical, so Spring centres around the vernal equinox which is when you have a day and night of equal length (this happens in Autumn too). this occurs near the end of march sometime not coincidentally around paddys day. so sets the three months of Spring as Feb March and April.

Just two different definitions..there are probably others

 

[Stromovka]

 

[Chara021]

I have people saying today is the first day of Spring The daffodils have started to come out though like. So nature thinks it's spring too I guess.

 

[El Guapo]

View attachment 29540

Ah its not that bad. it would make perfect sense if you were living in pre christian times. i think its mad how much of it we have retained.

You have the longest and shortest days - Winter and summer solstice. when the nights and days are longest/shortest and the equinoxes when they are equal.

The 4 seasons mark the transitions between so half way between the Winter Solstice and The Vernal equinox is Imbolc or Spring. The start of lambing season. 1st Feb. Big day so the church put St Brigets day here.

Bealtaine is half way betwern the vernal equinox and the Summer soltice - Mayday, when they moved cattle from winter to summer pastures so start of summer

Lughnaise - Half way between the Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox. 1st Aug. start of the Harvest. start of Autumn

Samhain - 1 Nov end of Harvest, move the cattle again, start of Winter. another big day so we get all souls day from the church.

Samhain and Bealtaine were considered to be when lines between us and the fairies were blurred so we get all the spooky stuff around halloween and all the wikerman stuff around May in places like cornwall, less so in Ireland.

Each of these events were a load of work with cattle or crops so there was a party after and now we have Bank Holidays associated with all of them.

 

[SoundMan]

AFAIK meterological seasons set the three hottest months by mean temperature as summer and the three coldest as winter, leaving the in between ones as Spring and Autumn. so sets Summer as June, July and Aug and hence spring March april and May.

The Celtic one is astronomical, so Spring centres around the vernal equinox which is when you have a day and night of equal length (this happens in Autumn too). this occurs near the end of march sometime not coincidentally around paddys day. so sets the three months of Spring as Feb March and April.

Just two different definitions..there are probably others

That would make sense just as long as there's three months between the end of the three hottest months and the start of the three coldest. Say June July and Aug are the three hottest, what happens if the three coldest are November, December, and January? That'd presumably give a meterological Spring of Feb March April and May and just an Autumn of October and November would it not?

And isn't it all kindof arbitrary anyway given that some months are 31 days long, some 30, and another 28/29.


Think it's easier to suggest that Feb marks the start of Spring whereas really the 91ish days between the darkest 91 days of the year and the brightest 91 days of the year probably starts around 6th of Feb-ish? So the start of Feb is probably the best rounding up approximate if you really do feel the need to tie it into the start of a particular arbitrarily sized month.

The animal kingdom doesn't bother with callendars and days of the week, but they, along with vegetation, seem to know when things are starting to get brighter and warmer, and it's stood them in good stead for millenia.

 

[The High King]

Spring doesn't start till March.