When does summer really get here?

Working on mysteries without any clues, it’s Monday Mail.

Summertime

Today’s opening is from Bob Seeger’s “Night Moves,” because it is the sweet summertime, now that the June 21 summer solstice has passed.

That was the subject of a June 19 column reporting that all previous news of summer’s arrival was fake. To say that summer already had come was only a theory.

That prompted this response from Kurt Schmitz, who is a certified meteorologist, as far as you know:

Sorry Tim, you’re just wrong.

You’re using an astronomical framework to describe what most people in the earth’s temperate zones consider a meteorological thing — the division of the seasons. For climatological purposes, scientists consider summer to consist of the months of June, July, and August. Ergo, summer “begins” on June 1. You could say that’s rather arbitrary, but so would be any other meteorological criteria one might use to define the seasons — like average temperature*.

You have no idea how many meteorologists cringe, roll their eyes, or even bang their heads against a brick wall when they hear one of their co-anchors or (more likely) a national cable news outlet make an absurd statement like, “It’s 120 degrees in Arizona and it isn’t even summer yet!”

For all intents and purposes, it’s already summer and has been for some time. The Arizonans might concur.

And when you think about it, even using the solstice to define the start of the summer season is a bit arbitrary. Astronomically, daylight is about as long in early April as it is in mid-September. The former is clearly spring, so why would it still be summer for the latter?

The solstices are what they are: astronomical events that represent the extremes of daylight over the earth which in turn do dictate the seasons. But no way am I buying that it can’t be considered meteorological summer until we hit and pass the solstice (or winter in that other hemisphere).

*If you did use average temperature, say, a 90-day period where the peak mean temperature fell in the middle, summer would run roughly from early June through about Labor Day for Columbus. But it would also be different in other parts of the U.S. and the world, therefore not a practical measure.

Kurt Schmitz,

Senior Meteorologist WRBL-TV,

Certified Broadcast Meteorologist.

Dear Kurt:

It is so cute that someone in the mainstream media today thinks people have to believe something just because it’s true.

We don’t have to buy that crap. All we have to say is, “FAKE NEWS! Sad!”

Where have you been?

Also your theory of “meteorology” relies heavily on the Gregorian calendar, and quite frankly I have never cared much for the politics of Pope Gregory XIII, since he celebrated the St. Bartolomew’s Day Massacre of the French Huguenots in 1572.

Also you write: “For all intents and purposes, it’s already summer and has been for some time. The Arizonans might concur.”

I know the origin story in the “Wonder Woman” movie’s generating a lot of hype, but I’ve checked the premise and I’m pretty sure no island of women-only warriors exists, so “Arizonans” are a myth. Also they’re supposed to have a rainforest, and obviously they do not.

So, you may be a “Senior Meteorologist” or “Certified Broadcast Meteorologist” or “Astronomical Summer Denier,” but that does not mean we have to buy your theory.

Perhaps we should have the experts who believe in “meteorology” debate those who propose “astronomy,” so they can yell at each other:

Meteorologists: “You think it’s hotter because of daylight? What about humidity?”

Astronomers: “There’s no humidity in space!”

This story was originally published June 25, 2017 at 7:51 PM with the headline "When does summer really get here?."