PHP snippet to display the season

The Spring Equinox has just begun, and I needed a PHP snippet that would display the current season, where Dec, Jan and Feb are Winter, etc. Here’s how.

<?php
$seasons = array("Winter","Spring","Summer","Autumn");
echo $seasons[(int)((date("n") %12)/3)];
?>

Notes

• First we create an array of season names, $seasons[0]=”Winter”, etc.
• date(“n”) produces a numeric month 1..12 (1=Jan, 12=Dec)
• date(“n”) %12 (modulus 12) converts month 12 (Dec) to 0. Modulus is also the remainder, so 12%12 is 1 remained 0.
• Then we divide by 3 and convert to an integer to produce four groups of months, 0,1,2,3.
• Then we display the nth array element.

Summary