Humans are sensitive to winter cold, which compromises the body’s ability to maintain both core and surface heat of the body. Few plants bloom in the winter, one exception being the flowering plum, which flowers in time for Chinese New Year. Larger plants, particularly deciduous trees, usually let their upper part go dormant, but their roots are still protected by the snow layer.
\nThe Atlantic\u2019s warm pattern is expected to continue, while the Pacific\u2019s cool pattern should weaken. Strong El Ni\u00f1o winters often favor milder temperatures across much of the United States and wetter conditions in parts of the West and South. This year\u2019s El Ni\u00f1o is expected to be strong, with unusually warm waters across the equatorial Pacific. A strong El Ni\u00f1o has returned and is expected to continue through winter. While it will still be cold in Alaska this winter, temperatures will be above normal overall, with more snow compared with average. Expect a mild winter in the Desert Southwest, with warmer and drier conditions, including in areas that usually receive snow.
\nThe polar vortex isn\u2019t a storm\u2014it\u2019s a large swirling pool of very cold Arctic air that usually stays near the North Pole in winter. If the polar vortex shifts south, it could send colder-than-average air from Canada farther into the United States. Last winter\u2019s La Ni\u00f1a faded to neutral conditions, and El Ni\u00f1o returned during the summer. Warmer and drier conditions are expected in the High Plains, along with below-normal snowfall. Expect colder temperatures in the Ohio Valley, with a wetter eastern area and a number of snowy periods throughout the season. Winter will be tough in the Appalachians, with colder and snowier conditions, especially in the north.<\/p>\n
This season is the coldest in the whole year, but not in the tropical zones. The process by which plants become acclimated to cold weather is called hardening. Other annual plants require winter cold to complete their life cycle; this is known as vernalization. It is one of six seasons recognized by most ecologists who customarily use the term hibernal for this period of the year (the other ecological seasons being prevernal, vernal, estival, serotinal, and autumnal). Ecological reckoning of winter differs from calendar-based by avoiding the use of fixed dates.<\/p>\n
The appearance of flowering plants like the crocus can mark the change from ecological winter to the prevernal season as early as late January in mild temperate climates. The hibernal season coincides with the main period of biological dormancy each year whose dates vary according to local and regional climates in temperate zones of the Earth. In the Northern Hemisphere, depending on the year, this corresponds to the period between 20, 21 or 22 December and 19, 20 or 21 March. In Chinese astronomy and other East Asian calendars, winter is taken to commence on or around 7 November, on L\u00ecd\u014dng, and end with the arrival of spring on 3 or 4 February, on L\u00ecch\u016bn. Among the Norsemen, it opened with the festival of Winter Nights (Vetrn\u00e6tr), which began on the Thursday between 9 and 15 October. Likewise, in Wales, winter began with the festival of Calan Gaeaf (“calends of winter”) on 1 November and ended on 1 February.<\/p>\n
But colder-than-usual temperatures are expected from central New England south through the Appalachians and into the Ohio Valley. Albanian traditional festivities around the winter solstice celebrate the return of the Sun (Dielli) for summer and the lengthening of the days. In the eighth century, Bede wrote that the pagan Anglo-Saxons had celebrated the festival M\u014ddraniht (‘Mothers’ Night’) at the winter solstice, which marked the start of the Anglo-Saxon year.<\/p>\n
See The Old Farmer\u2019s Almanac Winter Forecast for temperatures, snowfall, and the snowiest periods across the United States. When he saw the winter solstice, and he saw that the day was continuously lengthening, he said, “It is the order of the world!” He went and feasted for eight days. When the First Man saw that the day was continuously shortening, he said, “Woe is me! Because I have sinned, the world darkens around me, and returns to formlessless and void. This is the death to which Heaven has sentenced me!” He decided to spend eight days in fasting and prayer.<\/p>\n
In the Southern Hemisphere, the more maritime climate and the relative lack of land south of 40\u00b0S make the winters milder; thus, snow and ice are less common in inhabited regions of the Southern Hemisphere. The Swedish Meteorological Institute (SMHI) defines thermal winter as when the daily mean temperatures are below 0 \u00b0C (32 \u00b0F) for five consecutive days. Winter is often defined by meteorologists to be the three calendar months with the lowest average temperatures. In comparison, Vancouver, a city on Canada’s west coast with a marine influence from moderating Pacific winds, has a January low of 1.4 \u00b0C (34.5 \u00b0F), with days well above freezing, at 6.9 \u00b0C (44.4 \u00b0F). From the perspective of an observer on the Earth, the winter Sun has a lower maximum altitude in the sky than the summer Sun. Humans are sensitive to winter cold, which compromises the body’s ability to maintain both core and surf …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2778],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toyamashin.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021722"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toyamashin.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toyamashin.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toyamashin.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toyamashin.jp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2021722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.toyamashin.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2021723,"href":"https:\/\/www.toyamashin.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021722\/revisions\/2021723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toyamashin.jp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2021722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toyamashin.jp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2021722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toyamashin.jp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2021722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIn his Panarion, also from the fourth century, Epiphanius of Salamis wrote that the winter solstice was celebrated on 25 December in Alexandria as the Kikellia. Macrobius wrote in the fourth century that the Sun appears small at the winter solstice, and on this shortest day, the Egyptians brought an idol of a child Sun god out of a shrine. Plutarch wrote in the Moralia mystake casino<\/a> (first century AD) that the Egyptians believed the goddess Isis gave birth to Harpocrates (Horus the Child) at the winter solstice. Since prehistory, the winter solstice has been a significant time of year in many cultures and has been marked by festivals and rites. Other names are the “extreme of winter”, the “shortest day” and the “longest night”.
\nThe opposite event is the summer solstice, which happens at the same time in the opposite hemisphere. The winter solstice, or hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth’s poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. There is no snowing in many regions during winter.
\nConversely, winter in the Southern Hemisphere occurs when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted more toward the Sun. When it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and vice versa. Different cultures define different dates as the start of winter, and some use a definition based on weather. It occurs after autumn and before spring, when the hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun as a result of the tilt of Earth’s axis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"