Time keeping

[seandamnit]

Hey Kids,

I put this in the Simple Questions topic at first, but I realize now it's something that warrants it's own thread. Sorry if it's already been discussed to death.

I've been thinking about time keeping in this world a lot lately. They have a concept of a year, but no seasons to mark the passing of a year - just moon turns, and I'd assume Maesters can tell when a year has passed using the stars. Seems to me that the smallfolk who are disconnected from the educated wouldn't understand years without some sort of yearly predictable cycle...but apparently they have a good enough understanding to mark Name Days and the such.

Additionally, agriculture would be very difficult without predictable seasons of hotter/colder warmer/dryer weather. Like you can't expect to grow much if it's 90 degrees every day for 5 years straight. This makes me think that there must be some "mini" seasons - separate from the long summers/winters/etc - that go through a predictable, yearly cycle. Though I don't think there has been any mention of that in the books.

Any thoughts on this?

[Arya kiddin']

This might help, good ser. :)

[corbon]

This makes me think that there must be some "mini" seasons - separate from the long summers/winters/etc - that go through a predictable, yearly cycle. Though I don't think there has been any mention of that in the books.

Possibly there has, sort of. "Summer snows" exist, for example, which could mean that there are warmer and cooler periods during each 'long summer' or 'long winter'.

There is also the "Year of the False Spring' in 281, again suggesting a warmer period during a winter, followed by a colder period within the same winter, then a 'real' spring. Perhaps.

[RedShirt47]

I had always thought it a bit like California (I've heard it said they don't have weather, they have climate) whose weather doesn't vary much throughout the year. It's a bit colder in winter and a bit warmer in summer. And California has a vibrant agricultural sector, especially wine. Not that all Westeros has Californian weather but a similar lack of swings.

I see Winter in Westeros more like an Ice Age. We even get mini ice ages every few hundred years and massive ones every tens of thousands of years. I believe the last mini one was early nineteenth century and gave Dickens the idea of how a white christmas should be.