>I guess it's a question of whether you're more interested in using the season to describe the weather in your local environment, or to describe the position of the earth in its orbit.
>


I'll go along with the position of the earth. Otherwise, the first day of spring doesn't mean much. Weatherwise, spring is when you don't have to worry about frost anymore, when the snakes come out, when the first flowers bloom, when it's time to plant the garden, and so on.

But those things happen at different times depending on latitude, elevation, prevailing winds and a bunch of other things. Indeed, there are some places that don't really have seasonal change. Or maybe they just have the tourist season and the off season.

There might be some advantages to having spring begin on the offical first day of spring, but it is not going to happen. Within the last few days, a cold snap denied us the expected spring weather and I spent a lot of time bringing in flower post and covering plants that were already growing outside. Today, I have been uncovering them and carrying the pots back out. And why not? It seems like spring out there.
Howard