I've always considered it kinda odd, kinda off, that summer (that's
astronomical summer)
begins with the longest day of the year (and winter begins with the shortest day of the year). Seems like the traditionally sunny-season should be symmetrical around the summer solstice (and the less-sunny season symmetrical around the winter solstice) -- the longest days grouped together as summer and the shortest days grouped together as winter. And autumn and spring would group the days of intermediate-daylight hours. As it is now, the last day of winter has as many hours of daylight as the last day of summer -- doesn't seem right.
In fact, there's a traditional holiday called "
Midsummer"...but it doesn't occur in
mid-summer, it occurs on the summer solstice -- the
beginning of summer (on our calendars).
I think somebody, way back when, knew that the summer solstice is the
middle of summer -- not the beginning.
I suppose the standard seasons are when they are based on temperature trends (the warmest days are "summer", etc.)...but temperature trends vary a lot while the daylight trends are exact.
Maybe I'll start observing the
meteorological seasons -- makes more sense -- to me.
(and after the seasons are fixed we can start working on the decimalization of time and dates
)
