The four seasons

I only just found out about this today. There are three different ways to determine the current season, which are astronomical, meteorological, and traditional. I only found this out because I was wondering when summer officially ended, and read that it actually depends on where you go.

According to the meteorological reckoning, which is the one I was used to, the seasons are broken up into batches of 3 months, determined by the temperature, with summer being the hottest quarter of the year, and winter being the coldest. So, in a country that uses meteorological, such as Australia, summer would begin on the first day of the hottest three months of the year, December 1 in the southern hemisphere.

However, and this is what confused me when winter officially ended, other countries, such as the USA and Canada, use the astronomical reckoning to determine the seasons. That is, seasons start at the solstices and equinoxes. So, autumn would begin at the autumn equinox, winter at the winter solstice, spring at the spring equinox, and summer at the summer solstice. It kinda makes sense, but it means you have to remember specific dates, and it's not necessarily the same every year. In short, I'll be stuck with summer for another month yet.

The traditional reckoning is based on solar radiation but I won't get into that because it's not going to affect me any time soon. In any case, there's a whole explanation on it at Wikipedia.