In January, is it winter in Australia?

2 years ago by netvor to c/nostupidquestions

I mean, everyone knows that in January it's hot in Australia, and in July it's cold there.

But do Australians call it "winter" in January and "summer" in July? Or does just "winter" imply hot weather and beaches, and "summer" implies winter, eh, i mean, snow sports and wool socks.

And given that, most of the population lives in northern hemisphere, is there a body of dad jokes and culture tropes related to the fact that "we're different", or is it just too cringe and boring. (I realize both could be true on this one.)

AbouBenAdhem 72 points 2 years ago

No, summer and winter are reversed in the southern hemisphere.

But more than that, the seasons aren’t even consistent within each hemisphere—the exact beginning and ending dates of each season vary from region to region depending on the local climate.

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teft 25 points 2 years ago

As an example, where I live near the equator we have seasons that are only a few weeks long. We alternate between "summer" and "winter". The quotes are because the only real difference in our seasons is how much rain falls since neither the temperature nor the amount of daylight changes much. Winter seasons are cloudy and wet and summer seasons are sunny and dry.

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Meron35 24 points 2 years ago

The concept of 4 seasons itself is very Eurocentric, and leads to the inaccurate belief that the seasons/climate are messy and unpredictable in Australia.

The native aboriginal peoples have their own season system for each region, which much more accurately describes the weather. For example, the aboriginal calendar identifies 7* seasons in Victoria.

*Edit for previously incorrect info which stated there were 6 seasons (different area of Australia)

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Signfeld 7 points 2 years ago

That's actually really interesting, I had no idea. Do you have a link with the page to that image? It got jpeg'd and I'd like to read more.

Edit: thanks for the links all, really appreciate it.

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Jimmycrackcrack 7 points 2 years ago

found it the webpage it appears to have originally come from described it as being the Noongar 6 season calendar so the names on this chart are Noongar words from South Western Australia not from Victoria which is the South East, so maybe theirs are different.

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Deceptichum 2 points 2 years ago

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Rooskie91 21 points 2 years ago

Yeah if you think about it the idea of 4 seasons permeating culture has more to do with European colonization than anything scientific.

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Nikls94 6 points 2 years ago

Well, here in Austria we get about a day of skiing less per year since the 2000s.

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Ghostalmedia 5 points 2 years ago

Also, for the northern hemisphere people, yes, Australia has snow.

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waggz 11 points 2 years ago

also for Americans, Austria is not Australia

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Ghostalmedia 5 points 2 years ago

So was that a comment from an Austrian thinking the Australian posts was about Austria? Or was that an Australian who misspelled their country’s name? Or was that an Austrian who knew the post was about Australia, but they just wanted to talk about Austria?

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Deceptichum 49 points 2 years ago

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DSkou7 17 points 2 years ago

So March is just eels?

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SidewaysHighways 7 points 2 years ago

Fuckin EELS

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blackbirdbiryani 2 points 2 years ago

The river eels are considered 'trash fish' to some here but they're delicious, tastes just like Japanese eels. They're just a bit of a pain to skin and prepare.

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Contentedness 4 points 2 years ago

Shout out the Merri Creek!

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makingStuffForFun 2 points 2 years ago

The wattles are thick with buds that will be blooming soon. That means trout fishing time!

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ChilledPeppers 26 points 2 years ago

I live in Brazil, we call cold season winter, hot season summer :). January is summer.

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neidu2 2 points 2 years ago

As a scandinavian who has worked in Brazil for two years I can confirm that Brazilians do in fact call two identical seasons differently based on whether it's closer to Christmas. I usually worked the night shift, and in July-ish, my Brazilian coworker usually wore a hat while on the backdeck while I was sweating like a hog.

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AdNecrias 1 point 2 years ago

It's rain season, not cold one =)

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ChilledPeppers 1 point 2 years ago

That depends on where in Brazil you are, but yes,in the north (near the equator), winter is as hot as summer, and spring/autumm are the warmest seasons.

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DeltaTangoLima 19 points 2 years ago

No - it's definitely Christmas in summer in Australia. But somehow my dear old Gran never got the memo, and insisted on making us sit down and sweat through a full roast Christmas lunch each year, sometimes in 40°C+ heat.

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dharmacurious 8 points 2 years ago

An Aussie friend from a forum I was on ages ago posted a video of his family's Christmas tree, and it blew my mind that they decorated it with snowmen and snowflakes and shit. They had a fire going, a big ass turkey or some such (baby emu?) on the table. Whole freaking classic Christmas affair.

Why? Why do you do this? If it flipped somehow, and Christmas now came during summer here in the US, I'd be decorating the tree with flip flops (thongs?) and sunglasses, and having mojitos with a light salad for dinner lol

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DeltaTangoLima 5 points 2 years ago

Yeah, now I have my own family and we do our own Christmas, it's shorts, thongs, BBQ, seafood and beer.

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dharmacurious 5 points 2 years ago

When I was a kid we lived in Florida briefly.* On Christmas, we went swimming, did a cookout, and went fishing. It was awesome. Looked it up, it was 82f/27c that day. 2 months later, in February, we were in North Carolina, where there was snow on the ground, and huge chunks of ice floating in the lake at the campground we were staying at. The lake had a giant slide in it, about 50 feet/15 meters. Right in the middle of the lake. Me and my brother could not resist. Ended up swimming there on my birthday. Haha. There's no point to this story, hot Christmas just made me think of it.

*At times like this, I never know if I should explain things like Florida. On the one hand, I'm being presumptuous if I assume someone on the other side of the planet has a working knowledge of one of our 50+ subnational jurisdictions, on the other I'm acting like I have to explain Florida to someone who has access to a super US centric internet... Blegh.

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RBWells 1 point 2 years ago

I'm in Florida, and Christmas does get a tree but nobody expects snow, lol. But it's our cool season, still winter. What bothers me more is the harvest festivals in fall. Nothing much grows here in summer, in fall we are just ramping up the garden, so in that way it's more like spring in other cooler places.

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Deceptichum 3 points 2 years ago

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dharmacurious 2 points 2 years ago

If it matters, they're super wealthy, so it might be a class thing where they do it up for holidays

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I_Fart_Glitter 2 points 2 years ago

White Wine in the Sun is a Christmas song by Australian comedian Tim Minchin.

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ace_garp 3 points 2 years ago

Oz xmas is often sun, pool and beach oriented, with family big lunches.

Exactly like this at every house across Australia. /s

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kambusha 14 points 2 years ago

Can't comment on Australia, but South America calls Jan summer, and July winter.

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Aussiemandeus 2 points 2 years ago

What about the other months

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kambusha 3 points 2 years ago

Chaos reigns

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Cringedrif 11 points 2 years ago

So right now the summer Olympics are taking place in winter...

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abbadon420 28 points 2 years ago

No, they're taking place in Paris

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grue 3 points 2 years ago

Except for the surfing, which is taking place in Tahiti. 'Course it's not really "winter" there because it's tropical, but still, it's at the same latitude as parts of Australia.

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ace_garp 10 points 2 years ago

I'm in two places:

In Australia

and

in tears!! XD

'But do Australians call it "winter" in January and "summer" in July?' !!!

For future reference, every country on the planet calls their own cold time of year - Winter, and their hot time of year - Summer.

Except countries near the equator(halfway between the top and bottom of a world map), equatorial countries are hot all year and have a wet-season and a dry-season.

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Kelly 5 points 2 years ago

And given that, most of the population lives in northern hemisphere, is there a body of dad jokes and culture tropes related to the fact that "we're different", or is it just too cringe and boring.

Nothing anyone wound mention but there are some ironic Christmas clothing like a shirt with Father Christmas with sunglasses and cooking a barbeque, or a rashie with a knitted sweater pattern.

We are also aware that if a foreign studio announces a game or movie with a season for their release window they probably mean the northern season. Our studios tend to just use a month instead.

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Knuschberkeks 2 points 2 years ago

spending christmas in australia or new zealand has been one of my top bucket list items for decades.

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CopernicusQwark 4 points 2 years ago

My friends who grew up outside Oz find it weird that to me "it ain't Christmas unless it's scorching hot". To me the idea of having a cold Christmas is the odd one.

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sobriquet 2 points 2 years ago

🎶 drinking white wine in the sun 🎶

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Omgboom 1 point 2 years ago

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