End of Heat處暑

End of Heat (處暑, Chǔ Shǔ) is the fourteenth of the twenty-four solar terms and the point where the traditional calendar declares the heat in retreat. It is an astronomical instant, not a day: the moment the sun reaches 150° of ecliptic longitude, which falls somewhere between 22 and 24 August depending on the year.

處 here carries the sense of "to dwell" or "to stop", so the name reads closer to "heat comes to a halt" than to a simple weather forecast — and, as with the other heat-named terms, whether a given year actually feels cooler by this date is a matter of local climate, not of the solar term itself.

It falls at the midpoint of the 申 month that Beginning of Autumn opened roughly two weeks earlier, and it is followed roughly two weeks later by the next 節, White Dew. In the agricultural calendar it marks the point after which the year's peak heat is traditionally considered past, even where daytime temperatures still run high — the nights, more than the days, are where the change first shows.

End of Heat is a 氣 — a mid-month term — and a 氣 changes no pillar at all. The month pillar's branch was already set to 申 when Beginning of Autumn opened this month, and it stays 申 straight through to the next 節, White Dew. A birth at End of Heat and a birth a week before or after it can carry the same month pillar with nothing about End of Heat itself moving it.

This site's calculator treats every 氣, this one included, as a marker with no effect on the four pillars: it is useful for describing where in the solar year a birth falls, but the year, month, day and hour pillars are computed from the 節 boundaries and the calendar, not from End of Heat.

Minor Heat (小暑) and Major Heat (大暑) — The twenty-four solar terms. All three English names carry the word "heat", and it is easy to assume they all work the same way. They do not: Minor Heat is the one 節 among the three and opens a month pillar; Major Heat and End of Heat are both 氣 and change nothing.