End of Summer

Is it really the end of summer?  The first week of September would have you guessing otherwise.  Perhaps it all depends on the part of the country you live.  The meteorological calendar would tell you summer has ended.  I believe many of the local school students would agree too.

After much debate within my own head I came to the conclusion that locally the easiest way to separate the seasons is using the four seasons, three month approach.

Summer = June-July-August

Fall = September-October-November

Winter = December-January-February

Spring = March-April-May


Sure you could make some arguments.  September can clearly be labeled as a summer month especially the first half.  The same argument could be made for winter and March.  The first snow surely will occur in November, but I hardly consider the week after Halloween to be winter.  Maybe it's not as clear cut.  Even now I find myself debating whether the above is true.  Does our weather more resemble something like this?

Summer = June-July-August-September

Fall = October-November

Winter = December-January-February-March

Spring = April-May


I must be truthful.  This was not my objective when I started this post as I now feel the latter might be a better representation of our seasons.  I think I'm going to have to do some tracking to determine averages.  I'll save that for another post.


Here's the real reason I decided to spend a Thursday night blogging.  If we can agree that summer is over, or at least basically over, what would qualify this as a "bad" summer.  We hear the phrase bad winter and even great summer.  So what is bad?

11
15
29

I will get back to those numbers.  

I've never been a big fan of summer and probably never will be.  I don't do well with warm temperatures and can sweat on a 50 degree day with ease.  Don't get me wrong, winter can really harsh the mellow too.  Fall might be close to perfect.  At least for some.  Others want the heat.  If you've been watching the local news (New York or Philadelphia) you probably think we have been getting slammed.  There's a reason for that assumption.  This is where we dig a little deeper.

I generally follow Philadelphia media outlets.  They mentioned the abundant amount of heat waves this summer which caused a red flag to go up for me.  What heat waves?  The summer has felt like summer but did I miss something more?  Turns out the answer was no.  Many weather publications and the weather industry tend to favor the count of +90.  Basically they count how many times a city hits at least 90 during the course of a summer.  Some count +95 and/or +100.  All depends on where you are.  In our area three consecutive days of above 90 temperatures is an official heat wave.  Time for a little research.

Here is where you see the difference a few (or more) miles can make.  All readings locally are taken at airports.  In this scenario I will be using Philadelphia, Reading and Allentown of which none are located in these cities.  Philadelphia airport is south of the downtown area.  Reading's from Penn Street is about 3.5 miles to the northwest, and Allentown's is almost 4 miles north northeast of the monument on Hamilton.  Take this for what it is worth.  Side note.  I live 3.5 miles from the Allentown airport which is why observations there could be just as accurate for Bethlehem.

Among larger cities in PA these three in relation to each other and their reporting stations are the closest.

Philadelphia to Reading - 51.8 miles
Philadelphia to Allentown - 54.9 miles
Reading to Allentown - 33.6 miles

Back to the numbers of summer (June-July-Aug).

Allentown/Bethlehem hit the 90 degree mark 11 times this summer.

Reading hit the 90 degree mark 15 times.

Philadelphia broke 90 a total of 29 times.


There is a huge difference between 11 and 29 even if one hit 89 when the other hit 90.  The magical number of 90 is what continually gets reported.  And to what I was able to find, the average for Philadelphia is closer to 20 for a season.

So was it a bad summer?  Numbers alone would tell you Philadelphia suffered.  By the way, neither Reading nor Allentown hit 95 while Philadelphia did four times.  At no point would I have said this summer has been oppressive.  Here's the kicker.  If you compare the average summer temperatures of each city, Allentown has been the warmest.

More to come.  Keeping following at the new Lehigh Valley Living as this will become a mix of weather and local culture.