What is summer?
A: Summer is the hottest of the four temperate seasons,
occurring after spring and before autumn.
At or centered on the summer solstice, the earliest
sunrise and latest sunset occurs, daylight hours are longest and dark hours
are shortest, with day length doing what?
A: Decreasing as the season progresses after the solstice.
The date of the beginning of summer varies according to
what?
A: Climate, tradition, and culture.
When it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it is
winter where?
A: In the Southern Hemisphere, and vice versa.
From an astronomical view, the equinoxes and solstices
would be the middle of the respective what?
A: Seasons.
Sometimes astronomical summer is defined as starting at
the solstice, the time of maximal insolation, often identified with what?
A: The 21st day of June or December.
By solar reckoning, summer instead starts when?
A: On May Day and the summer solstice is Midsummer.
A variable seasonal lag means that the meteorological
center of the season, which is based on average temperature patterns, occurs
when?
A: Several weeks after the time of maximal insolation.
The meteorological convention is to define summer as
comprising what months?
A: June, July, and August in the northern hemisphere and the months of
December, January, and February in the southern hemisphere.
Under meteorological definitions, all seasons are
arbitrarily set to start at the beginning of what?
A: A calendar month and end at the end of a month.
This meteorological definition of summer also aligns
with what?
A: The commonly viewed notion of summer as the season with the longest (and
warmest) days of the year, in which daylight predominates.
The meteorological reckoning of seasons is used in what
countries?
A: Australia,
New Zealand, Austria, Denmark,
Russia and
Japan.
It is also used by many people in what?
A: The United Kingdom and Canada.
In Ireland, the summer months according to the national
meteorological service, Met Éireann, are when?
A: June, July and August.
By the Irish calendar, summer begins when?
A: On 1 May (Beltane) and ends on 31 July (Lughnasadh).
In the middle of summer, the sun can appear even when
in the northern hemisphere?
A: At midnight.
Days continue to lengthen from equinox to solstice and
summer days progressively shorten after the solstice, so meteorological
summer encompasses the build-up to what?
A: The longest day and a diminishing thereafter, with summer having many
more hours of daylight than spring.
Reckoning by hours of daylight alone, summer solstice
marks what?
A: The midpoint, not the beginning, of the seasons.
Midsummer takes place over what?
A: The shortest night of the year, which is the summer solstice, or on a
nearby date that varies with tradition.
Where a seasonal lag of half a season or more is
common, reckoning based on astronomical markers is shifted how?
A: Half a season.
By this method, in North America, summer is the period
from the summer solstice (usually 20 or 21 June in the Northern Hemisphere)
to when?
A: The autumn equinox.
Reckoning by cultural festivals, the summer season in
the United States is traditionally regarded as beginning when?
A: On Memorial Day weekend (the last weekend in May) and ending on Labor Day
(the first Monday in September).
The similar Canadian tradition starts summer on what day?
A: Victoria Day one week prior (although summer conditions vary widely across Canada's expansive territory) and ends, as in the United States, on Labor Day.
In some Southern Hemisphere countries such as
Brazil,
Argentina, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, summer is associated
with what?
A: The Christmas and New Year holidays.
