A season is a subdivision of the year, marked by changes in weather, ecology, and hours of daylight. Seasons result from the yearly revolution of the Earth around the Sun and the tilt of the Earth's axis relative to the plane of revolution. In temperate and polar regions, the seasons are marked by changes in the intensity of sunlight that reaches the Earth's surface, variations of which may cause animals to go into hibernation or to migrate, and plants to be dormant.
During May, June and July, the northern hemisphere is exposed to more direct sunlight because the hemisphere faces the sun. The same is true of the southern hemisphere in November, December and January. It is the tilt of the Earth that causes the Sun to be higher in the sky during the summer months which increases the solar flux. However, due to seasonal lag, June, July and August are the hottest months in the northern hemisphere and December, January and February are the hottest months in the southern hemisphere.
In temperate and subpolar regions, generally four calendar-based seasons (with their adjectives) are recognized: spring (vernal), summer (estival), autumn (autumnal) and winter (hibernal). However, ecologists mostly use a six season model for temperate climate regions that includes pre-spring (prevernal) and late summer (serotinal) as distinct seasons along with the traditional four.
Hot regions have two or three seasons; the rainy (or wet, or monsoon) season and the dry season, and in some tropical areas, a cool or mild season.
In some parts of the world, special "seasons" are loosely defined based on important events such as a hurricane season, tornado season or a wildfire season.
Other articles related to "seasons, season":
... network television seasons start in mid-September and end in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps ... Beginning with its fourth season, 24 began its season in January and aired new episodes non-stop until May ... Season Episodes Timeslot (ET) Season premiere Season finale Rank Viewers (in millions) 1 2001–02 24 Tuesday 900 pm November 6, 2001 May 21, 2002 #76 8.60 2 2002–03 24 October 29 ...
... Tribune June 15, 2006,) and playing one season for the A's Single-A teams, the Broncs and Modesto, California and one more season for their Double-A affiliate in Birmingham, Alabama ... the Broncs' catcher-manager, for helping him through that difficult season ...
... subscription channel Sky1 after the second season ... sales of the season one DVDs increased the audience size of season two by 25% ... A special edition of the first season was released on May 20, 2008 ...
... The first six seasons of the show were mostly based in Los Angeles and nearby California locations—both real and fictional ... for parts of the fourth, sixth, and seventh seasons ... The eighth season took place in New York City, and the TV movie Redemption, filmed in South Africa, was set mainly in the fictional African nation of Sangala ...
... During the 1896–97 season they were champions and during the 1897–98 season they finished 4th ... In the 1909–10 season they joined the Spartan League B Division ... They gained promotion in their first season finishing third of sixth in their division ...
Famous quotes containing the word season:
“She, O, she is fallen
Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea
Hath drops too few to wash her clean again
And salt too little which may season give
To her foul tainted flesh!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The theater is a baffling business, and a shockingly wasteful one when you consider that people who have proven their worth, who have appeared in or been responsible for successful plays, who have given outstanding performances, can still, in the full tide of their energy, be forced, through lack of opportunity, to sit idle season after season, their enthusiasm, their morale, their very talent dwindling to slow gray death. Of finances we will not even speak; it is too sad a tale.”
—Ilka Chase (1905–1978)
“At this season I seldom had a visitor. When the snow lay deepest no wanderer ventured near my house for a week or fortnight at a time, but there I lived as snug as a meadow mouse.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)