Do you prefer meteorological or astronomical seasons?

Meteorological

Per my understanding, it's already the standard used everyday by people in the majority of the world - and quite frankly it makes more sense. It uses whole months, making it easy to understand intuitively when the next season begins as opposed to trying to remember of it's the 21st or 22nd this year. It comes closer to the actual temperature cycle in a lot of (not immediately coastal) temperate and humid continental places. Plus it's weird to think of summer as being a season of solely decreasing day lengths, with the longest day split between spring and summer, and the shortest split between autumn and winter. Besides, around here June 1 feels a lot more summery than September 1: by the latter, while it's still warmer on average, crisp fall-like mornings have arrived, back-to-school season is on, and people are already starting to get back into pumpkin spice-flavored stuff again.

Meteorological. The first three weeks of Mar, Jun, Sep and Dec definitely belong to the meteorological seasons here.

It depends when it comes to Sydney:

*Summer does indeed start by Dec 1 as November is pretty much summery
*March 21st starts feels like it's autumn, not March 1st (when it's still warm and humid)
*June 1st definitely feels like the first day of winter
*Sep 1 is pretty much like the first few weeks of spring here, because August itself is somewhat spring-like

So yeah, I'm guessing meteorological seasons win for Sydney.

Meteorological makes sense for here. November 30 and March 1 have nearly identical averages, June 1 and September 1 are also similar in averages. June 21 is much warmer than Sept 21 here (79/56 vs 69/45 averages) and the difference between December 21 and March 21 is even bigger (24/7 vs 41/22).

For Myrtle Beach:

Spring: February-April
Summer: May-September
Fall: October-December
Winter: January


The true winter season is probably from around November-March but even then, there's plenty of warm for both ends of the winter. Even December is more fall-like than winter like, cause the average high is 58°F, same with February too. February is when the Bradford pears and maple trees start to wake up, along with daffodils and other hardier plants. By May, it already feels like summer, especially with the humidity. However, summer-tier weather can last all the way to late October, sometimes November, so not everything is so stable and clear. October's average low is 52°F, but the average high is 75°F, making even that a late summer month than early fall, more like an Indian summer than a real summer month, also due to daylight.

Especially for Colorado, which got snow right after Labor Day in 2020, when it was still "summer" per astronomical definition...

Meteorological seasons are definitely more accurate for most of the world, as most places in the world reach their maximum/minimum temperature one month after the summer/winter solstice. However, places with a lot of coastal influence such as Cape Sable Island, San Francisco, Dakar and Nouadhibou have their maximum average temperature peak in September, close to the autumn equinox! In addition, places close to the North Pole such as Ilulissat, Eureka, Station Nord and Longyearbyen have their minimum average temperature peak in late February or even March! However, these examples are all exceptions to the general rule.

Meteorological, better fit here even with the seasonal lag. March 21 slightly warmer than December 1, etc. Also, I like how meteorological are clean, 3 month sets. Always the same dates and it’s always full months, not parts of one and parts of another month.