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: Althouse

"Punxsutawney Phil predicts early spring."

It's Groundhog Day.

Have you never noticed why it makes perfect sense to consider the beginning of spring on this day in the beginning of February, which seems like the middle of winter? I submit that it really is the end of winter, if you understand winter properly, in terms of the deprivation of light, as opposed to warmth. It's the darkness that hurts. The cold is bracing. Put on a fuzzy sweater!

Officially, winter begins on the solstice, but that is the darkest day of the year. If you care about light, half of the darkest days are already over when winter officially begins. And the phenomenon of each day getting darker is completely over. Winter understood in terms of darkness would put the solstice at its center and extend a month and a half in either direction. Thus, if the solstice is December 21, as it was this year, then true winter ? light-sensitive winter ? began around November 6 and ends a few days from now, around February 5th.

Kids, it's Spring! Wake up and smell the daffodils!

Full post as published by Althouse on February 02, 2011 (boomark / email).