No we haven’t redefined the astronomical calendar! Spring officially is still 21 March (the equinox – 12 hours of equal day and night), but in meteorology we think of the seasons in whole months. For us Spring is March to May, Summer is June to August, Autumn is September to November and Winter is December to February.
Two things to look out for: see the latest Met Office Spring 2009 forecasts (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/science/creating/monthsahead/seasonal/2009/spring.html) and also if you haven’t seen it, it is interesting to look at the KEW 100 (http://data.kew.org/wild/phenology/). The KEW 100 is an index that follows the flowering of different plant species and how that responds to changes in the weather (and of course over longer periods climate).
The KEW 100 is a more recent index taken from a much longer record going back over a hundred years at least. The Royal Met Society used to publish the UK-wide phenological (species flowering) records as early as the 1870s.
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