Summer

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Summer is one of the four temperate seasons, marked by the warmest time of year with the longest days.

The seasons are popularly considered to start on different dates in different cultures. When it is summer in the southern hemisphere it is winter in the northern hemisphere, and vice versa. From a purely astronomical viewpoint, the equinoxes and solstices would be the middle of the respective seasons, but a variable seasonal lag means that the meteorological start of the season, which is based on average temperature patterns, occurs several weeks later than the start of the astronomical season.^[1] According to meteorologists, summer extends for the whole months of December, January and February in the southern hemisphere, and the whole months of June, July and August in the northern hemisphere^[2]. This meteorological definition of summer also aligns with the commonly viewed notion of summer as the season with the longest (and warmest) days of the year, in which daylight predominates. From the astronomical perspective, days continue to lengthen from equinox to solstice and summer days begin to shorten after the solstice, so meteorological summer encompasses the build-up to the longest day and a diminishing thereafter, with summer having many more hours of daylight than spring.

Today, the meteorological reckoning of the seasons is used in Australia, Denmark and the former USSR; it is also used by many people in the United Kingdom, where summer is thought of as extending from mid-May to mid-August. The definition based on equinoxes and solstices is more frequently used in the United States where many regions have a continental climate with a temperature lag of about six weeks.

Elsewhere, however, the solstices and the equinoxes are taken to mark the mid-points, not the beginnings, of the seasons. In Chinese astronomy, for example, summer starts on or around May 5, with the jiéqì (solar term) known as Lixia (立夏), i.e. "establishment of summer", and it ends on or around August 6. An example of Western usage would be William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, where the play takes place over the shortest night of the year, which is the summer solstice.

In Ireland, the summer months according to the national meteorological service, Met Eireann, are June, July and August. However, according to the Irish Calendar summer begins May 1 and ends July 31. School textbooks in Ireland follow the cultural norm of summer commencing on 1 May rather than the meteorological definition of 1 June.

In southern and southeast Asia, where the monsoon occurs, summer is more generally defined as lasting from March to May/early June, their warmest time of the year, ending with the onset of the monsoon rains.^{[citation needed]}

From a popular culture point of view, in some areas of the United States, summer season is often considered to begin at the Memorial Day weekend (the last Monday in May) and end at the Labor Day weekend (the first Monday in September). Likewise, another set of pop-cultural reference points for summer is the time when elementary and secondary schools close down for the "summer vacation". This period usually lasts from around early to mid June until around late August to early September, depending on where the school is located. In the New York legal community, summer is generally considered to begin when summer associates arrive in April or May. Some people in the United States consider summer the period from the summer solstice to the fall equinox.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8]}

Contents 1 Activities 2 Gallery 3 See also 4 References

[edit] Activities

In most countries children are out of school during this time of year for summer holidays, although dates vary. In the Northern Hemisphere, some begin as early as mid-May, although in England and Wales, school ends in mid- to late July. In the Southern Hemisphere, school holiday dates include the major holidays of Christmas and New Year's Day. Summer school holidays in Australia begin a few weeks before Christmas and end in late January to mid-February, with the dates varying in different states.

[edit] Gallery

Summer, a fresco by Ambrogio Lorenzetti

An allegory by Giuseppe Arcimboldo

[edit] See also

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Summer

• Sumarr, personification of summer in Norse mythology.

[edit] References

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