大寒

だいかん ₀ 【大寒】

二十四節気の一。太陽の黄経が三〇〇度に達した時をいい、現行の太陽暦で一月二〇日頃に当たる。一年で最も寒い季節。一二月中気。［季］冬。
→小寒

Tuesday was daikan, the coldest day of the year. In Tokyo, where it was so warm it felt like spring, the temperature suddenly plunged and the season seemed to return to the dead of winter.

Folklorist Tsuneichi Miyamoto (1907-1981) wrote of a childhood memory about telling the weather from the sound of the wind in the forest trees and the waves on the ocean. When a northerly wind blew and hit the trees with a low, clear sound, the next day's weather would be clear and sunny. "The forest and waves were also my meteorological observatories," he recalled.