Idk if this is a stupid question or not lol. Obviously when moving from one year to the next, January is right in front of December, e.g. December 2023 is right behind January 2024, but is there a reason that months were designed so that winter carries on into the next calendar year?
We have 12 months and 4 seasons, so each season perfectly divides into 3 months a season. With that in mind, why didn’t we design the months so that winter is in 3 consecutive months within the same calendar year?
I’m not sure if I’ve articulated what I mean properly, so let me know if further clarification is needed.
In: Planetary Science
Because solstices and equinoxes are the most basic way to measure the year. In our current calendar, the winter solstice happens around December 21st, which is also the first day of “winter”. Our nominal seasons are based on the earth’s position relative to the sun, not the actual weather conditions.
As for why the solstice doesn’t happen on December 31st, that can be traced to all kinds of adjustments made over the centuries in order to have a calendar that stays in sync with the solar year.
The real answer is that a lot of our calendar doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and it’s clearly been cobbled together from so many civilizations and rulers that it would’ve been better just to start from scratch at some point.
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