The Dog Days of Summer

The Dog Days of Summer are the hottest, most sweltering days of the year. Depending on your location, they run for about a month between early July to the beginning of September in the northern hemisphere, and from January to March in the southern hemisphere.

The term "Dog Days" refers to the days when Sirius, the Dog Star, rises with the sun.

The ancient Egyptians associated Horus, the dog-headed god, with Sirius, the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (The Greater Dog), and the brightest star in the night sky. During this time, Sirius rose at dawn during the most blistering part of summer. The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans believed the bright Sirius, so close to the sun, added its radiation to the sun's, increasing the season's already fierce heat.

To the ancients, these sultry days, when rainfall was at its lowest and temperature its highest, was an evil time, causing suffering and disease in man and beast. Food spoiled, dogs went mad and all creatures languished in the stifling atmosphere.

Due to the precession of the equinoxes (the slow, gradual, circular change in the orientation of the earth's rotational axis resulting in the westward motion of the equinoxes along the ecliptic), Sirius no longer rises at daybreak on the same dates as it did for the ancient Mediterranean civilizations. In the Roman era, the Dog Days ran from July 24 through August 24. Today, the Dog Days run from July 3 to August 11, according to The Old Farmers' Almanac, although many European cultures adhere to the original dates.

So, if you're awake before dawn during the peak of summer, take a look at the eastern sky. That bright star near the horizon is Sirius, heralding the Dog Days of Summer.

Thank you all,
Linda

The picture, from Wikipedia, is of Canis Major. Sirius marks the dog's nose.

1816: The Year Without A Summer, Part I

1816 was supposed to be a good year in Regency England. After almost twenty years of warfare, 1815 had seen Napoleon's final defeat and his exile to St. Helena in the southern Atlantic.

But even as a welcome peace settled over the land, a large number of cloudy days, temperatures much colder than average and excessive rain conspired against the return of prosperity.

Early 1816 in England ranks with 1814 as one of the two coldest winters since records were first kept in 1659. In the London area, snow fell on Easter (April 14), and again on May 12. A summer peppered with notably cold periods and unusually high amounts of rain succeeded the frigid winter. On July 30, snow drifts were still on Helvellyn, the highest peak in the Helvellyn range in the Lake District, and in early September, ice formed on water in London.

The depressed temperatures prevented normal crop growth and the copious rain caused what did sprout to rot in the fields. Poor harvests had been the rule for the previous few years, and 1816's crop failure led to food shortages. This dismal year was then succeeded by the bitter winter of 1817.

Since the weather prevented the crops from growing, farm laborers were left without work. At the same time, returning soldiers swamped the country, swelling the masses of the unemployed. The Corn Laws, enacted the previous year, had set the price of grain at a high level. The intent was to protect British farmers from an onslaught of cheap foreign grain. But after successive years of abysmal harvests, British grain prices soared to heights the poor couldn't afford. Food riots broke out and food warehouses were looted. In one riot in Dundee, rioters ransacked over 100 shops and a grain store.

Disease usually accompanies famine, and 1816 was no exception. The food shortages led to the typhus epidemic of 1816-1819, responsible for the deaths of an estimated 100,000 Irish.

What produced such atrocious weather? In my next post, I'll explore the physical causes of The Year Without A Summer.

Thank you all,
Linda