Start of Spring and February

Tomorrow, February 4th, is the first day of the Start of Spring (in Mandarin, lìchūn) solar term.

立春

Obviously, this term represents the beginning of spring from a meteorological point of view, not an astronomical one; there will a "spring equinox" term later in the year.

Even thinking about the weather, this is somewhat optimistic, since we are just at the beginning of February, a month associated with great cold in the sculpture of the Romanesque churches of Europe:

February

Autun Cathedral, France
12th century

While the other months are usually represented by agricultural activities, February is the "dead of winter": the right thing to do is to sit indoors by the fire. And yet, here in the Pacific Northwest, the first blossoms appear on some plum trees in this month.

By the way, the Chinese term spring causes some confusion. Chinese New Year  does not arrive for another week, and it moves from year to year because the Chinese calendar is lunisolar; it can very well fall outside of the Start of Spring solar term. The Chinese name is 春节, chūnjie, literally Spring Festival, so the character for spring appears in all sorts of expressions and signs related to new year