Mira smiled. “I thought it was the solstice. Or the cold temperatures. Or the snow.”
Driving west in January, Mira climbed into the Sierra Nevada. A park ranger, Kai, handed her a snow gauge. “Winter in the high country doesn’t end until the snowpack peaks in April. But it starts when the first pass closes—sometimes October. Ask the skiers: winter is when the powder falls, not when the calendar says.”
And so, Mira wrote her report: Winter in the United States has no single date. It is a quilt stitched from latitude, altitude, ocean winds, and latitude of the heart. But if you must have an answer: it begins on the winter solstice—around December 21—and ends on the vernal equinox—around March 20. Yet the cold, like a storyteller, keeps its own schedule.
Finally, Mira returned home as February turned to March. She sat on her porch, watching a late-season blizzard whirl. Her neighbor, a retired farmer, shuffled over. “You still chasing winter’s start?” he asked.
