"Sarah" wrote in message
oups.com...
I am wondering why spring - and all other seasons -"officially"
begin at the first of the month in which a solstice or equinox take
place in New Zealand? Everywhere else I have lived in Europe and the
USA seasons begin at the equinox or solstice (22nd or 21st).

I even owned a calendar in NZ one year that said all southern
hemisphere countries the season change began on the solstice or
equinox.

Do other countries besides NZ begin on the 1st? Does Australia?

I do recall that a committee of the UK House of Commons a few years back,
for reasons not stated, decided they needed to know when spring started.
Probably to answer a question like this. So they asked the Met Office (a
branch of the RAF), expecting an answer to the nearest second.

What they got back was an answer along the lines of "spring is when the
little lambs start appearing in the fields, and all the birds are busy
gathering twigs for their nests...".