title: Athena greater than condition in date column
body: <p>I have the following query that I am trying to run on Athena.</p>
  
  <pre><code>SELECT observation_date, COUNT(*) AS count
  FROM db.table_name
  WHERE observation_date &gt; '2017-12-31'
  GROUP BY observation_date
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However it is producing this error:</p>
  
  <pre><code>SYNTAX_ERROR: line 3:24: '&gt;' cannot be applied to date, varchar(10)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This seems odd to me. Is there an error in my query or is Athena not able to handle greater than operators on date columns?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks!</p>