Maine Arguably has Two More Seasons Than Most Other States

Maine weather has been the butt of so many jokes...

As long as I've been alive, I feel like there've been jokes about Maine's weather. I always assumed it because we're never truly happy with whatever season we're in. If it's summer, it's too hot. If it's winter, it's too cold. Fall seems to be about the only time of year Mainers can agree on, since it seems a little less muddy than spring.

But another popular joke among Mainers about the weather, is that we have extra seasons within our seasons. You've always heard the joke that it's Winter, than False Spring, followed by 2nd Winter. Then Mud Season, straight into road Construction Season, then into Fall. But of course, how could we forget 2nd Summer?

Here's the thing... It may not be a joke at all.

Initially, I saw a post on Reddit, where someone sheepishly floated the idea that maybe winter was over. Naturally, someone immediately pointed out we're in False Spring. While this concept has always been a great source of humor for Mainers, the National Weather Service lends some credibility to this theory.

At the NWS website, they describe it this way:

With all the changes involved, it would be fair to say Maine has at least six distinct seasons with two in the warming transition and two in the cooling transition.

In other words, they really do agree that Maine has more like, 6 seasons altogether. Pretty much accounting for False Spring and 2nd Summer.

Does knowing it's true make it better or worse?

There's the million dollar question, right? On one hand, it's nice to know we're not just crazy. It makes me feel a smidge better to see science recognizes our awkward meteorology. But it also feels like now we actually have six seasons. Somehow in my mind that almost makes it seem like the year last even longer.

To me, it really just shows that the practicality of Maine humor, is always based in some sort of fact. So this kinda proves, that if there's an old Maine joke about it, it's probably true. So maybe in fact... there was a time when you couldn't get there from here. But that's a whole other story...

We're probably on this list somewhere, for some reason, let's see...