tlb wrote:
The weather at Sphinx is often mentioned. Also we see Honor living there and the Stephanie Harrington stories.
Sphinx actually has relatively mild weather, it's just really LONG seasons. A complete Sphinx orbit is 5.22 T-years long, and winter alone is a full T-year. Gryphon's orbit is only 1.69 T-years long, so a Sphinxian winter is almost as long as the entire planetary orbit of Gryphon which has stronger and more intense weather. So Gryphon actually has far more tempestuous weather than Sphinx, which simply has longer seasons.
Honor of the Queen, Ch.10 (Honor and McKeon) wrote:“That’s because you’re an effete Manticoran. You call what you get there weather?” She sniffed. “You’re all so spoiled you think a measly meter or so of snow is a blizzard!”(Honor)
“Oh? I don’t see you moving to Gryphon.”(McKeon)
“The fact that I like weather doesn’t make me a masochist.”
“I don’t imagine Commander DuMorne would appreciate that implied aspersion on his home world’s climate,” McKeon grinned.
“I doubt Steve’s been back to visit Gryphon more than twice since the Academy, and if you think what I have to say about Gryphon weather is bad, you should hear him. Saganami Island made a true believer out of him, and he resettled his entire family around Jason Bay years ago.”
Also in early Ashes of Victory, when Elizabeth first informed Honor she's now a Duchess
Ashes of Victory, Ch.6 wrote:"Correct," Elizabeth assured her. "We've carved a rather nice little duchy out of the Westmount Crown Reserve on Gryphon for you. There aren't any people living there right now—it was part of the Reserve, after all—but there are extensive timber and mineral rights. There are also several sites which would be suitable for the creation of luxury ski resorts. In fact, we've had numerous inquiries about those sites from the big ski consortiums for years, and I imagine several of them will be quite eager to negotiate leases from you, especially when they remember the role you played in the Attica Avalanche rescue operations. And I understand you enjoy sailing, so we drew your borders to include a moderately spectacular stretch of coast quite similar to your Copper Walls back on Sphinx. I'm sure you could put in a nice little marina. Of course, the weather on Gryphon can be a bit extreme, but I don't suppose you can have everything."
emphasis bolding, mine
Beowulf was also generally described, from Honor's point of view in the same book
(Beowulf)Her mother's birth world was dry and dusty by the standards of most human-inhabited worlds. It had enormous continents and few but deep seas. While it lacked the mountains and extreme axial tilt which made Gryphon's weather so . . . interesting, it also lacked the climate-moderating effect of Gryphon's extensive oceans. That meant she'd grown up accustomed to a pronounced "continental" climate, with long, hot summers and extremely cold winters, but Honor was a child of Sphinx. For her, the long, slow seasons of her chilly home world, with their rainy springs, cool summers, blustery autumns, and majestic winters would always be the norm
So Beowulf and Gryphon are vaguely similar, but Gryphon is certainly described as more powerful, while Sphinx is described more generally as long and slow seasonal shifts. Also the segment from early Echoes of Honor when Nimitz is "shedding with a vengeance", as a native of Sphinx he didn't handle the climate change of ship-board to Hell very well.
I recall San Martin weather being described, briefly, about how they have to live on the mountaintops due to toxic air density, and that her 'refugees' from Hell were willing to tolerate the gravity and weather simply to get off their captured ships.