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The weather can be quite a sneaky thing sometimes - a promised warm and thundery Summer becomes dull and unsettled, the prospect of lots of heavy snow in Winter just becomes mostly rainy affairs... it doesn't always go as we hoped or dreamed for. But, what would be your dream Summer/Autumn/Winter/Spring? And what type of weather would it include? For example, would your Winter be constantly mild with frequent spells of Atlantic frontal rain? Would Autumn be full of unusually warm spells? Things like that. You may just include just one season if you like when discussing your ultimate season set-ups. For me, Summer would be generally warm and settled (similar to what has occurred so far), with the Azores High Pressure system constantly sending some of its ridging to our East. Then, as Lows to the West bump up against the High Pressure to the East, hot and thundery breakdowns would be introduced. Ideally, most of the precipitation that falls would be of extremely torrential hail and rain with loud bangs of thundery and reasonably frequent lightning. Ocassional night-time storms included. At most, there would be no more than two spells of frontal rain during Summer, with most of the wet stuff coming from high-quality thunderstorms and showers. During the hottest spell, temperatures would reach up to 38*C, but only lasting for two days. Summer would, however, be above average in general. A dream Autumn would feature a number of unusually warm and unusually cold spells with a very early snowfall at the beginning of October. This of which would be caused by an exceptionally potent and unstable Northerly wind bringing much colder air than normal for the time of year. There would be a few odd periods of frontal rain, otherwise most of the precipitation would come in the form of showers, many of which would be wintry. September, though, would be mostly warm and sunny throughout with frequent Southerly or South-Easterly winds. Autumn wouldn't be that windy, either. Winter would feature strong Northern blocking throughout with Lows constantly getting forced to the South of the UK providing frequent snowfalls on their Northern flanks. There would hardly be any rain, except for some rain-to-snow events. Specifically, I'd have a repeat of 28th January 2004, where rain turned fully into torrential snow within one minute! But it wouldn't all be snowy, though, as there would be sunnier, quieter periods with slack winds and thick frost. To round it off, there would be unstable North-Easterly airflows with a segment of the Polar Vortex dropping down into Europe unleashing some monsterous sunshine and snow shower set-ups... But with some of these falling as hail as well. The 850 hPa temperatures would dip down to -20*C during Easterly/North-Easterly episodes, with the Winter's CET -6*C below average. The deepest snowfall would be up to 50.01cm and consist of snowflakes 2x larger than a £2 coin. Finally, for Spring, it would be a mixture of everything. Sunny spells, snow showers, hail showers, thunder, few odds spells of rain (drizzle not included), gusty periods, calm periods, and warm and cold spells. May would generally veer on the hot side, though, with temperatures 2*X above average. However, May 1st would see a rare UK-wide snowfall. Just another aspect about this topic is the weather events don't necessarily have to be realistic (e.g: a very deep Polar Low of 750mb giving a 2,000 meter dumping of snow over Carding Mill Valley).

Since there always seems to be a debate, mainly at the end of every summer and winter, about how the seasons are defined, in this thread I'm going to run over some of the most common season reckonings. Meteorological reckoning The meteorological reckoning of seasons is the one that many of us are familiar with and use on a regular basis. It is used by many Brits and quite a lot of Europeans. The meteorological reckoning is one of the simplest methods of defining the seasons. It basically attaches three calendar months to each season. For example: Spring: 1 March to 31 May Summer: 1 June to 31 August Autumn: 1 September to 30 November Winter: 1 December to 28/29 February Astronomical reckoning The astronomical reckoning is less common here in the UK, but is still used by a fair few, however this reckoning is mainly used by North America. It works on the basis of solstices and equinoxes, therefore the positions of Earth on it's orbit. Very simply a new season will begin when it's respective solstice or equinox occurs. The most common dates for the astronomical seasons are: Spring: 20 March to 20 June Summer: 21 June to 22 September Autumn: 23 September to 20 December Winter: 21 December to 19 March Solar reckoning The solar reckoning of the seasons is virtually unheard of in the UK and most of Europe and North America. However in many East Asian countries, this reckoning is most commonly used. It works in a very similar way to the astronomical reckoning in which it relies on the solstices and equinoxes, but with one key difference - the respective solstice or equinox falls slap bang in the middle of the season. Therefore the usual dates for the solar seasons are: Spring: 4 February to 5 May Summer: 6 May to 7 August Autumn: 8 August to 6 November Winter: 7 November to 3 February Ecological reckoning The ecological reckoning is a bit different to the previous reckonings that I've looked into. This one doesn't really take any interest into Earth's orbit, but instead observes nature. It is also different because it has six seasons, instead of the traditional four that we know of. For example: Prevernal (pre-spring): 25 January to 10 March Vernal (spring): 11 March to 31 May Estival (high summer): 1 June to 14 August Serotinal (late summer): 15 August to 24 September Autumnal (autumn): 25 September to 30 November Hibernal (winter): 1 December to 24 January Traditional Irish reckoning The traditional Irish reckoning of seasons is virtually unused today. It was observed in the traditional Irish calendar and works in a very similar way to the meteorological reckoning, though it also seems to be influenced by the solar reckoning too. The one key difference is that this is one month ahead of the meteorological, so each season begins a month earlier. For example: Spring: 1 February to 30 April Summer: 1 May to 31 July Autumn: 1 August to 31 October Winter: 1 November to 31 January These are the five most widely used seasonal reckonings. If you know of anymore, or you have your own way of defining them, then post below!