Winter solstice is the peak of winter! The middle turning point. (Not literally in the sense of the otters, so that we'd calculate days prior and after the winter solstice for their changing.)
Before the site updates the otters changed to their winter coats roughly around november and back to summer coats roughly around april or may (sometimes dragging onto june), the same schedule snow hares appear in the stream, so about 6 and 6 months.
(Of course it could be argued that winter ends much sooner than may, so the changing can also be thought of as "beginning of winter season" and "beginning of summer season").
So the growing/breeding season when arctic animals are brown is generally from about May to October (and the winter coat is generally from October to May) with some overlap when the prior coat is being shed and the new one is coming in.
This silly seasons changing all out of kilter with the actual weather comes from the internet and media being preoccupied with the equinoxes and solstices and forgetting that the seasons traditionally started at the "cross quarters" of Groundhog Day (spring), May Day (summer), Lammastide (autumn) and Hallowe'en (winter). You can tell this by the Summer Solstice being called "Midsummer". Why call it Midsummer if it's the first day of summer? Because it never was until recent years.
It's like all the crazy "Blue Moose Blood Super Moon" nonsense, when we used to just call it a lunar eclipse. There are literally hundreds of different ethnic names for the moon in each month and season and this unnecessary cultural appropriation seems oddly out of sync with the supposedly scientific bent that governs when we say the seasons start. We've swallowed the pedantic seasonal dates as being more "modern", but then revert to ancient ethnic names when it comes to the moon phases and eclipses (which SHOULD be couched in scientific terms, as they are mathematically calculable and governed by physics).
My join date says 2012, when I made an account I promptly forgot about until August 2023, so I'm really *gasp* a newbie.
I have no phobias or disliked critters. Feel free to click anything in my keep, except the "Quests" tab. I think you'll find plenty there without those 2 or 3.
froglady wrote: ↑February 3rd, 2024, 12:47:49 am
So the growing/breeding season when arctic animals are brown is generally from about May to October (and the winter coat is generally from October to May) with some overlap when the prior coat is being shed and the new one is coming in.
This silly seasons changing all out of kilter with the actual weather comes from the internet and media being preoccupied with the equinoxes and solstices and forgetting that the seasons traditionally started at the "cross quarters" of Groundhog Day (spring), May Day (summer), Lammastide (autumn) and Hallowe'en (winter). You can tell this by the Summer Solstice being called "Midsummer". Why call it Midsummer if it's the first day of summer? Because it never was until recent years.
It's like all the crazy "Blue Moose Blood Super Moon" nonsense, when we used to just call it a lunar eclipse. There are literally hundreds of different ethnic names for the moon in each month and season and this unnecessary cultural appropriation seems oddly out of sync with the supposedly scientific bent that governs when we say the seasons start. We've swallowed the pedantic seasonal dates as being more "modern", but then revert to ancient ethnic names when it comes to the moon phases and eclipses (which SHOULD be couched in scientific terms, as they are mathematically calculable and governed by physics).
I mean, a Lunar Eclipse and a Super Moon are different things. The Super Moon has to do with closeness of the moon to earth, not it's position relative to the earth and the sun, which an eclipse is.
I was talking mainly about the "Blood Moon" thing as a substitute for the familiar and much more technically correct "lunar eclipse" term. Supermoons are technically full OR NEW moons near perigee, but it's only in the news if the phase is full, and a Supermoon is only 10-14% or so greater in apparent size, which is not a lot. Most of the apparent large size is due to observers going outside to see the Supermoon rise and encountering the moon paradox. The moon paradox, where the moon looks larger near the horizon than further up in the sky, is an optical illusion caused by your brain comparing the moon to objects on the Earth. The moon can also look flat on top and bottom, "rippled" at top and bottom or stretched in the horizontal plane near the horizon. That's an actual effect caused by atmospheric lensing, but the size disparity is an optical illusion.
"Supermoon" is an astrological term that was lifted about 40 years ago by a scientist who decided to quantify the term as being 90% of perigee so it could be used by popular science writers, but it's been redefined several times (twice by the original guy if memory serves) and there's no real strict definition of it, certainly not as used by the media. The astronomical term for it is either full (new) moon at perigee or perigee-syzygy, which is not a familiar or simple term for the layman to get his brain around, hence the drive to scientifically quantify the term "Supermoon" for popular use.
And since lunar eclipses are only possible at the full moon, Supermoon and Blood Moon overlap quite often.
Last edited by froglady on February 4th, 2024, 4:46:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
My join date says 2012, when I made an account I promptly forgot about until August 2023, so I'm really *gasp* a newbie.
I have no phobias or disliked critters. Feel free to click anything in my keep, except the "Quests" tab. I think you'll find plenty there without those 2 or 3.
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