There is more than one answer to a question like when a season starts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recently my wife showed me that there is a Reddit community (subreddit) called Data Is Beautiful. Over there I found a reference to an article by Jasmine Mithani and Kaleigh Rogers at FiveThirtyEight on November 24, 2021 titled Our very unscientific poll on when each season starts. I would use the astronomical definitions with equinox or solstice, but, as shown above for winter via a PowerPoint donut chart, there are other possibilities like holidays.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I dislike donut charts (because it’s hard to discern small differences), so I have shown results for all seasons above via a single bar chart. For fall, the autumnal equinox is the most common answer, but for the other three seasons the astronomical definition comes in second or third. Also 1% even say fall starts when pumpkin spice lattes are available again.