Winter Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Winter season is really amazing and has some special atmosphere, that everyone cold feel. During this days, people wear special clothes, use fruits and vegetables as decorations for their homes and also light special candles. (Kwanzaa festival with Ron Karenga, he is the creator of the pan-African and African American holiday Kwanzaa) People celebrate this holiday with families, giving gifts to each other, going to church, singing special songs and having an amazing time with magical atmosphere in the air! Now we are going to tell you about the best and interesting summer tradition in the world! Coming of Winter to every country and town is a significant event, that is way there are a lot of celebrations and holidays, regarding to greet this amazing time of the year.
Frost on the plants even helps them to accumulate how much force they would need to grow and get covered with young and green leaves in the spring. Winter is the best time for plants and trees to relax and prepare for the next season. Days become short, as usual not so sunny and nights are becoming longer. Winter is one of the four Earth’s seasons, that goes after autumn and foreshadows spring.
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.

Mostly Mild Winter — Colder, Snowier Spots Ahead!

In the sixth century, the Greek historian Procopius wrote that the people of Scandinavia (which he calls Thule) held their greatest festival shortly after the winter solstice, to celebrate the return of daylight. For that hemisphere, the winter solstice is the day with the shortest period of daylight and longest night of the year, and when the Sun is at its lowest arc in the sky. The days are shorter, and the nights are longer. Winter is one of the four season and it is the coldest time of the year. The name of the festival means fresh fruits and based on different African harvest festivals, that were held in ancient times.

Holidays

• Another just grow more warm fur, that would help them to live when the weather is cold and also well-known way to survive winter season is fall into hibernation.
• The coldest moth of the winter in this hemisphere is January.
• People celebrate this holiday with families, giving gifts to each other, going to church, singing special songs and having an amazing time with magical atmosphere in the air!
• The process by which plants become acclimated to cold weather is called hardening.
• Most of plants and animals are having their hibernation period, so winter is not full of bright colors, but who says that white, snowy and a bit magical winter is not cool?
• 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.

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.
Conversely, 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.

Find Your 2026–2027 Winter Forecast

While much of the country is headed for a milder season, some areas will still see plenty of cold and snow. A snowier-than-normal winter is expected from central New England through the Appalachians, in the Intermountain region and Pacific Northwest, and in Alaska. While it won’t be as cold as usual, it’s still winter! Across much of the country, temperatures are expected to be near normal or warmer than normal. A milder winter doesn’t mean the cold is taking the year off.

• Larger plants, particularly deciduous trees, usually let their upper part go dormant, but their roots are still protected by the snow layer.
• The Swedish Meteorological Institute (SMHI) defines thermal winter as when the daily mean temperatures are below 0 °C (32 °F) for five consecutive days.
• The day on which this occurs has the shortest day and the longest night, with day length increasing and night length decreasing as the season progresses after the solstice.
• In this region, snow occurs every year in elevated regions such as the Andes, the Great Dividing Range in Australia, the mountains of New Zealand, and in the southerly Patagonia region of South Argentina.
• In the southern hemisphere, the winter solstice is usually June 21 or June 22.
• This led some scholars to believe that Scandinavian Yule (Jól) originally was a sun festival on the winter solstice.

List of winter solstice festivals and observances

In 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 (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 mystake casino winter”, the “shortest day” and the “longest night”.

This led some scholars to believe that Scandinavian Yule (Jól) originally was a sun festival on the winter solstice. The Heimskringla, written in the 13th century by the Icelander Snorri Sturluson, describes a Jól feast hosted by the Norwegian king Haakon the Good (c. 920–961). Philipp E. Nothaft, a professor at Trinity College Dublin, though this “is nowadays used as the default explanation for the choice of 25 December as Christ’s birthday, few advocates of this theory seem to be aware of how paltry the available evidence actually is”. A widely-held theory is that the Church chose it as Christ’s birthday (Dies Natalis Christi) specifically to appropriate the Roman festival of the sun god’s birthday (Dies Natalis Solis Invicti). In AD 274, the emperor Aurelian made this the date of the festival Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, the birthday of Sol Invictus or the ‘Invincible Sun’. In the same century, Ovid wrote in the Fasti that the winter solstice is the first day of the “new Sun”.
In Gaelic Ireland and Scotland, winter began with the festival of Samhain on 1 November and ended with Imbolc on 1 February. For many mainland European countries, especially Germanic regions, winter began at Martinmas (Saint Martin’s Day) on 11 November. Bede also mentions an older ‘two-season’ year, where summer ended and winter began at the full moon during the month of Winterfylleth, in October. Likewise, in Christian Anglo-Saxon calendars, winter began on 7 November, its midpoint was the solstice or Midwinter on 25 December, and winter ended on 6 February. In the Julian calendar used in the ancient Roman world, winter began on 10 November, its midpoint was the winter solstice on 25 December, and winter ended on 6 February. This idea survived in parts of Europe into the Early Middle Ages, co-existing with the newer idea of four seasons.