I&#x27;m the author. (Hi!) The temperature extremes definitely do lag the solstices by around a month. That&#x27;s not covered explicitly in the piece but implied when I say that the coldest quarter of the year (for the Northern Hemisphere) is from early Dec to early March, putting the temperature trough in the middle, in late January. That lag is well-represented in the meteorological seasons I suggest using: Dec-Feb (centered on January, the coldest month), Mar-May, etc.<p>Coastal California is indeed one of the few places in northern temperate latitudes where summer goes that late; some of Japan is in the same boat. Even so, December, January, and February are the coldest three months in SF, LA, and Tokyo, which supports the idea that meteorological winter makes a lot of sense. 
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