The Summer Solstice: Astronomy Is Not Meteorology

It boggles the mind that the same meteorologists who know that June, July, and August days are counted when calculations are made on the average temperature for summer nonetheless broadcast the summer solstice that falls three weeks into June as the first day of summer. To do so in the context of weather forecasts is nothing short of intellectually dishonest. To an unfortunate extent, those meteorologists may simply be following the herd of tradition at the expense of thinking for oneself. The human brain is suited for much more than a herd-animal mentality.
 
“What’s the difference between meteorological and astronomical seasons? These are just two different ways to carve up the year. While astronomical seasons depend on how the Earth moves around the sun, meteorological seasons are defined by the weather. [Meteorologists] break down the year into three-month seasons based on annual temperature cycles. By that calendar, spring starts on March 1, summer on June 1, fall on Sept. 1 and winter on Dec. 1.”[1] Therefore, meteorologists who broadcast the summer solstice, which falls between June 20-22 depending on the year (as per leap years), as the first day of summer can be reckoned as intractable herd animals in their own profession. Distinct from the weather, as “the Earth travels around the sun, it does so at an angle relative to the sun. For most of the year, the Earth’s axis is tilted either toward or away from the sun. That means the sun’s warmth and light fall unequally on the northern and southern halves of the planet. The solstices mark the times during the year when this tilt is at its most extreme, and days and nights are at their most unequal. During the Northern Hemisphere’s summer solstice, the upper half of the earth is tilted toward the sun, creating the longest day and shortest night of the year. This solstice falls between June 20 and 22.”[2] This does not signify the first day of summer in terms of climate or weather, and yet too many meteorologists continue to mislead the public by stating on a weather graphic that the first day of summer falls on the summer solstice.
At most, meteorologists should constrain themselves on the summer solstice to announcing that daylight hours are most on that day (and least on the winter solstice, which falls well into December rather than on December 1, which is the first day of winter as we know it. By June 20-22, summer as we know it here below on Earth is well underway. During that week in 2025, parts of North America and Europe were already in a heat-wave, so it would be ludicrous to claim—especially by meteorologists as they should know better—that meteorological summer has just begun. And yet the basic category mistake continued unabated.

A television station in Boston, MA misleading the public as if June 20, 2025 were the first day of meteorological summer even though the graphic itself shows a heat-wave coming up! (left). On the right, Weather.com shows the forecast high then for London, UK. Obviously, June 20, 2025 was not the first day of meteorological summer in the Northern Hemisphere, so the claim to the contrary by meteorologists is nothing short of puffed up ignorance based on a category mistake broadcasted publicly by people who should know better because weather is their profession. Meteorology and astronomy are distinct domains, even though they are related. Maybe meteorologists in London should have telephoned those in Boston to pass on the tip that 90F in London is well into meteorological summer rather than its first day. 

That cognitive phenomenon is aptly described by Nietzsche in regard to his infamous claim that God it dead. Even though he states that he is referring to a particular conception of God—the Abrahamic one in which God is both vengeful and omnibenevolent—he is been thought to have been an atheist. Rather, his claim that adding “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord” to a deity that is omnibenevolent is to place an internal contradiction in that conception of the divine, as vengeance contradicts benevolence. The people responsible for this contradiction had no idea what they had done—their murderous act of discrediting an extant conception of the divine. Like light coming from the most distant star but not yet reaching Earth, news of their own deed did not arrive to them even as they had blood on their hands. Similarly, news of committing a category mistake has not reached the meteorologists who know that calculations regarding temperatures in a summer include June, July and August and yet broadcast that the first day of meteorological summer doesn’t “arrive” until the astronomical “summer” solstice. News of their own confusion and conflation hasn’t reached them yet, and yet their recurrent deed should be obvious to them especially, as their profession is meteorology. Perhaps astronomers could step and change the names of the astronomical “seasons”—not even using that word—so the public might realize that astronomy and meteorology are two distinct, albeit related, domains. Even astronomy is misleading in this respect in calling quadrants of the Earth’s orbit “seasons.” Therefore, I submit that the professions of both meteorologists and astronomers are at fault in enabling the confusing category mistake wherein two distinct domains are conflated. 

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1. The Associated Press, “Sunshine Abounds as the Summer Solstice Arrives,” APnews.com, June 20, 2025.
2. Ibid.

 

Getting the Seasons Wrong: Purblind Meteorologists

You may think you know the answer to the question, “When is the autumn season?” But do you?  Watching the weather section of local news on television or the internet, you could be excused for getting the beginning date wrong because it is the meteorologist who has misled you. In itself, getting the exact day right is not a big deal; it is not as if the temperature can be expected to take a nose-dive on the first day of fall. The astonishing thing is that so many meteorologists either knowingly or out of ignorance present the astronomical beginning of the “autumn” quarter of the Earth’s orbit as the meteorological start of fall, for the two are different yet admittedly related.

“According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, meteorological seasons are based on the temperature cycle in a calendar year.”[1] The first month of a given season tends resemble the preceding season and the last month anticipates the upcoming season. A season comes is fully its own in its second month. Each season lasts three months. “Meteorological fall begins on September 1” in the Northern Hemisphere and ends “exactly 90 days later, on November 30. Winter then gets its three months. Growing up in a northern Midwestern (U.S.) state, I just assumed that snowy March was part of winter. It sure felt like that. Only later, while living in the Southwest, did I realize that temperatures do start to go up in March.

Distinct but having an impact on meteorological seasons, the astronomical seasons are “based on the position of Earth in relation to the sun’s position.”[2] There are such seasons because of the tilt of the Earth in relation to the sun. On the summer solstice—the astronomical beginning of “summer”—the sun’s perpendicular rays get the farthest north; the Northern Hemisphere tilts toward the sun. The Southern Hemisphere is closest on the winter solstice—the astronomical beginning of “winter.” Again, while growing up in the northern Midwest, I knew that meteorological winter could not possibly start well into December just before Christmas, for winter cold was well ensconced by that time. The meteorological start of winter, on December 1st, is much more accurate in terms of temperature.

It is odd, therefore, that the start dates of the astronomical seasons are “more commonly celebrated” even to mark changes in weather.[3] A weather site or television broadcast using the astronomical start-date is inherently misleading, as the implication is incorrect. Even though Accuweather.com states, “Astronomical autumn officially arrives on Saturday, Sept. 23 at 2:50 a.m. EDT, a few weeks after the arrival of meteorological fall,” the presentation of the two starts by a weather organization may be confusing, especially as the paragraph continues with: “Regardless of which date you celebrate the start of autumn, . . .”[4] In an article on the fall weather forecast, two start-dates for that seasons are given. At least Accuweather.com distinguishes the astronomical from the meteorological. Local meteorologists use the astronomical dates on charts of weekly weather forecasts. 

On this weather chart, the Thursday (September 22nd) is labeled as "Fall." 

This is definitely misleading—or is it the case that local weather personalities do not realize their mistakes? At the very least, the television meteorologists astonishingly do not realize that they are giving false information—that they are misleading the public. It is absurd, at least in the northern tier of U.S. member states to say that summer does not begin until June 21^st and that winter does not begin until a few days before Christmas. To stick with something that is so obviously absurd and incorrect when meteorologists should know better is precisely the cognitive phenomenon that I want to highlight here.

Perhaps the culprit is cognitive dissidence: the brain holding two contradictory thoughts at the same time. I know this date is astronomical AND I am using it on a weather forecast AND I know that the meteorological date is different. This weakness or vulnerability of the human brain may mean that there are others.

Regarding religious and political ideological beliefs, the brain may be susceptible to “short-circuiting” an internal check that would otherwise keep the brain from conflating belief with knowledge. A person once told me that Michele Obama is really a man. I disagreed. The person replied, “That’s just your opinion; I have the facts.” I said that I did not want to discuss politics. “It’s not political,” she replied. My claim to the contrary was, again, “just an opinion.” I was stunned at such ignorance that couldn’t be wrong.  Next, she wrote a nonsensical “deep state” political coded message on an index card. That her brain would not entertain the possibility that it could be in error is precisely the vulnerability that I contend plagues the brain as it ventures into political and religious domains of cognitions. In short, I suggest that a healthy human brain has more cognitive weaknesses than merely being subjective, and that society is overwhelmingly oblivious to them.

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[1] Amaya McDonald, “When and How to Watch the Perseid Meteor Shower,” CNN.com, August 11, 2023.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Brian Lada, “AccuWeather’s 2023 US Fall Forecast,” Accuweather.com, July 26, 2023.