Social media is already awash with harbingers of autumn and it can only increase as the trees start to change colour.  Terroir was going to write something hard hitting and original about seasonal change but that seems to be getting harder every year.  The internet has everything you could ever want to know on climate change and how to define a season.  

Climate and weather seem a pretty obvious way to define seasonal change.  We in the UK still think of summer as warmer and drier and winter as colder and wetter.  We book our foreign holidays to avoid monsoon seasons or to exploit snow for ‘winter’ sports.  Or at least we try to forecast when these conditions will apply.  With climate change, this is becoming increasingly tricky. 

Astronomical seasons in Britain are based on the earth’s orbit around the sun and the timing of our equinoxes and solstices.  Thus the Met Office defines the astronomical seasons for the next 12 months as

Autumn: 22nd September 2024 to 21st December 2024

Winter: 21st December 2024 to 20th March 2025

Spring: 20th to March to 21st June

Summer: 21st June 2025 to 22nd September 2025

On that basis, therefore, and at the time of writing, it is still summer in the UK.

Meteorological seasons, however, are strictly defined by specific and unchanging dates to ‘coincide with our Gregorian calendar, making it easier for meteorological observing and forecasting to compare seasonal and monthly statistics’ (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/seasons/winter/when-does-winter-start).  The Met Office defines these periods as:

Spring - March, April, May

Summer - June, July, August

Autumn - September, October, November and

Winter - December, January, February.   By this definition, we are currently in autumn!

The church, the legal profession and bureaucracy have also had a crack at defining the seasons.  Quarter Days in Britain seem to have been around since at least Medieval times.  Based on religious festivals which roughly coincided with the equinoxes and the solstices, they were the dates when rents were paid, staff hired and educational terms started.  Dates changed a bit in the early 1750s due to the move from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, and to harmonise with Scotland, but the basic principle has survived.

Today, the English and Welsh Quarter Days are:

Lady Day: the Feast of the Annunciation, 25th March

Midsummer Day: the Nativity of St John the Baptist, 24th June

Michaelmas: the Feast of St Michael and All Angels, 29th September

Christmas: 25th December

According to this, we are still in summer having not yet reached the start of the Michaelmas term, due on the 29th September. 

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_days) quotes The Times (G. C. M Young 15/04/26) with the following useful memory aid:

‘Assuming you can remember when Christmas occurs, a useful mnemonic to place quarter days is to count the letters of the relevant months. Thus, in March, there being five letters, you can know that the quarter day is the 25th. June has four letters and the quarter day is the 24th, and September, having nine letters, has its quarter day on the 29th.’

Both Teams are experiencing late second flowerings (in the garden, not figuratively).

South - chives, rosemary, lavender and roses

North – apple, honeysuckle, teasle and also roses. 

Instagram evidence: bringing tender plants in early, rowan berries early, fungus early, trees turning early, onions lifted already.

One sign of seasonally change is certain, however: Christmas cards in the shops.