Update : I've talked to a few of my friends and one point they made was that winters arr not equal everywhere in the colloquial daily sense. It's quite normal and meaningful and easily interpreted to say that "winters are longer in Canada than in North Carolina". Or that Nova Scotia has longer autumn than Ontario. In other words there are places that may have a short winter (I.e. Short period of extreme cold and snow, with very dark nights etc) and places that have long winter. Not astronomically correct but semantically and practically useful.