What is a season?
Q: What is a season?
A: A season is a part of a year.
Q: How many seasons are there in most areas of the Earth?
A: Most areas of the Earth have four seasons in a year: spring, summer, autumn (British English) or fall (US English), and winter.
Q: Are there different numbers of seasons in some places?
A: Yes, some places have a different number of seasons. For example, the tropical parts of Australia (the northern parts of Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory) have wet and dry seasons which are in addition to or replace the regular season names. In tropical and subtropical places there are two seasons - rainy (or wet, or monsoon) season and dry season.
Q: What causes summer to be warm?
A: Summer is warm because the days are longer and the Sun is high in the sky giving direct light to the ground.
Q: Why is winter cold?
A: Winter is cold because days are shorter and Sun is low in sky giving indirect light to ground. Both changes in length of day and height of sun at noon are caused by tilt of Earth's spin axis with respect to plane of Earth's path around Sun.
Q: Does one hemisphere experience opposite seasons from another hemisphere?
A: Yes, at any time during any season, northern and southern hemispheres will experience opposite seasons from each other.
