The diminution of February

Updated 28 Feb.

My other half was pondering recently as to why February has so few days compared with the other months and with its immediate neighbours in particular. I responded that the Earth's orbit is not circular and during Winter, the Earth is a little closer to the Sun and moves more quickly, so something has to give at that time of year. Perhaps for some reason, it was decided that January and March were too important to give up any days, but February could take the hit instead and in a big way.

Anyway, I decided to look at the numbers. The dates and times (GMT) of recent and future equinoxes and solstices is as follows, with the last column being the time between the last event and current event (by my reckoning)*.

Autumn Equinox ‘25	22 Sep	18.19	-
Winter Solstice  ‘25	21 Dec	15.03	89 d, 20 h, 44 m
Spring Equinox  ‘26	20 Mar	14.46	88 d, 23 h, 43 m
Summer Solstice ‘26	21 Jun	08.24	92 d, 17 h, 38 m
Autumn Equinox ‘26	23 Sep	00.06	93 d, 15 h, 22 m

Those 'deltas' confirm the point I made and that it would make sense to have longer months in the Summer (by which I mean between the Spring and Autumn equinoxes), of generally 31 days, and shorter ones in Winter (by which I mean between the Autumn and Spring equinoxes), of generally 30 days, suitably adjusted to ensure 365 days per year and 366 in a leap year, of course. It should also mean less variation in the day number of the equinoxes and solstices.

(*Also by my reckoning, totalling those deltas makes about 365 and one quarter days, as we should expect).