Get the Current Season Using PHP

The PHP date() function is great for the majority of tasks regarding getting a date or time, however one thing it doesn’t cater for is obtaining the season. Seasons generally vary depending on the year and where you’re based in the world; While it’s Summer in the Northern Hemisphere it’s Winter in Australia.

The Code

The PHP function I’ve created below allows you to specify the date in question and also the location (Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere or Australia) and returns the correct season:

1. // $date - A date in any English textual format. If blank   
2. // defaults to the current date  
3. // $hemisphere - "northern", "southern" or "australia"  
4. function get_season($date="", $hemisphere="northern") {  
5.       
6.     // Set $date to today if no date specified  
7.     if ($date=="") { $date = date("Y-m-d"); }  
8.       
9.     // Specify the season names  
10.     $season_names = array('Winter', 'Spring', 'Summer', 'Fall');  
11.   
12.     // Get year of date specified  
13.     $date_year = date("Y", strtotime($date));  
14.   
15.     // Declare season date ranges  
16.     switch (strtolower($hemisphere)) {  
17.         case "northern": {  
18.             if (  
19.                 strtotime($date)<strtotime($date_year.'-03-21') ||   
20.                 strtotime($date)>=strtotime($date_year.'-12-21')  
21.             ) {   
22.                 return $season_names[0]; // Must be in Winter  
23.             }elseif (strtotime($date)>=strtotime($date_year.'-09-23')) {  
24.                 return $season_names[3]; // Must be in Fall  
25.             }elseif (strtotime($date)>=strtotime($date_year.'-06-21')) {  
26.                 return $season_names[2]; // Must be in Summer  
27.             }elseif (strtotime($date)>=strtotime($date_year.'-03-21')) {  
28.                 return $season_names[1]; // Must be in Spring  
29.             }  
30.             break;  
31.         }  
32.         case "southern": {  
33.             if (  
34.                 strtotime($date)<strtotime($date_year.'-03-21') ||   
35.                 strtotime($date)>=strtotime($date_year.'-12-21')  
36.             ) {   
37.                 return $season_names[2]; // Must be in Summer  
38.             }elseif (strtotime($date)>=strtotime($date_year.'-09-23')) {  
39.                 return $season_names[1]; // Must be in Spring  
40.             }elseif (strtotime($date)>=strtotime($date_year.'-06-21')) {  
41.                 return $season_names[0]; // Must be in Winter  
42.             }elseif (strtotime($date)>=strtotime($date_year.'-03-21')) {  
43.                 return $season_names[3]; // Must be in Fall   
44.             }  
45.             break;  
46.         }  
47.         case "australia": {  
48.             if (  
49.                 strtotime($date)<strtotime($date_year.'-03-01') ||   
50.                 strtotime($date)>=strtotime($date_year.'-12-01')  
51.             ) {   
52.                 return $season_names[2]; // Must be in Summer  
53.             }elseif (strtotime($date)>=strtotime($date_year.'-09-01')) {  
54.                 return $season_names[1]; // Must be in Spring  
55.             }elseif (strtotime($date)>=strtotime($date_year.'-06-01')) {  
56.                 return $season_names[0]; // Must be in Winter  
57.             }elseif (strtotime($date)>=strtotime($date_year.'-03-01')) {  
58.                 return $season_names[3]; // Must be in Fall   
59.             }  
60.             break;  
61.         }  
62.         default: { echo "Invalid hemisphere set"; }  
63.     }  
64.   
65. }  

Examples

Using the function above we can then call it in a variety of ways:

1. echo get_season("March 9th 2010"); // returns Winter  
2.   
3. echo get_season("2010-03-09", "southern"); // returns Summer  
4.   
5. echo get_season("9 Mar 2010", "australia"); // returns Fall  

Please note that seasons may vary by a day either way every few years