In Upstate New York (from which I have just moved), February is the depths of winter. The temperature there can plunge to -10°F (for the highs) for a week straight. It's not until early April that you're really guaranteed to see things thawing for good. (March can be a crapshoot; sometimes it's looking like spring, with warm breezes and birds returning, and other times you get 4 feet of snow dumped on you. In the same week.)
The maritime climate of the British Isles makes an enormous difference to the climate they experience—certainly as compared to the continental US, and to a lesser degree as compared to continental Europe. It's actually kind of fascinating teasing apart which of our cultural truisms about seasons originated on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, vs which ones were developed once we had colonized the New World.
You are incorrect. Winter starts on the ~21st of December. By the time February rolls around, we are only 6 weeks into the 12-week season of winter. The start of February is precisely the depths of winter. Late February is the ⅔ mark, and the third week of March is the very end.
In Upstate New York (from which I have just moved), February is the depths of winter. The temperature there can plunge to -10°F (for the highs) for a week straight. It's not until early April that you're really guaranteed to see things thawing for good. (March can be a crapshoot; sometimes it's looking like spring, with warm breezes and birds returning, and other times you get 4 feet of snow dumped on you. In the same week.)
The maritime climate of the British Isles makes an enormous difference to the climate they experience—certainly as compared to the continental US, and to a lesser degree as compared to continental Europe. It's actually kind of fascinating teasing apart which of our cultural truisms about seasons originated on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, vs which ones were developed once we had colonized the New World.