It sure is hot! It's hot! I'm betting that most of you have heard something similar to this if not these exact words during the past several weeks. I've heard people talk about dog days recently, that's a interesting subject. There are several different ways of thinking on dog days.
According to most people they start somewhere between July 3, and July 15 and last anywhere from 30 days to 61 days. But I definitely remember my grandparents talk about dog days running from July 25, until September 2, forty days. I'm not saying either one is right or either one is wrong.
One thing I notice is that during dog days is that mockingbirds do not sing like they do during the rest of the year, they will chirp a little and make some noise but not sing, but there again I think this could be because the mockingbirds are molting during this time, in other words losing old feathers and putting on new ones. Dog days are determined by the star Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky in the constellation, Canis Major.
The people of ancient times thought that the appearance of Sirius added to the heat of the sun, of course today we know that this isn't the case. I think some people are a little confused about this because we don't see the star Sirius until the winter months, when of course our weather is usually much cooler. I saw something of this on some local television stations this summer.
Some even mentioned that the constellations change over thousands of years, and they do according to the astronomy classes I had in college years ago. But I feel what people are not taking into account is that when we speak of people in ancient times we are speaking of people for the most part on the other side of the world where they are probably still seeing Sirius rise within a hour or two of sunrise now. Kind of like when it's daylight over here it's dark over there. If there is one good point about dog days it might be that when they come to a end, a little cooler weather usually isn't that far away.
With the mention of cool weather, several years back, I believe during the 1980's Florida started a early duck season that opened on the third Saturday of September. Back then I went duck hunting every chance I got, so the September season was a bonus for me. I remember going duck hunting on several September morning over the years and the weather would be cool, very nice I'm talking in the fifties during the morning.
Of course on the other side of that some of those September mornings would have a low in the mid to upper seventies, and on those morning you usually killed far more mosquitoes with each shot than you did ducks. Remembering those nice cool morning in September got me to thinking, I put a weather station up here at the house back during the summer of 2014 and have records from it going back to that time. I just checked the September records back to 2014 and saw that the only year that we didn't have a morning low in the fifties was last year when the lowest September morning I could find was 68 degrees. The lowest September temperature I found was September 14, 2015 when the low temperature was 51.4 degrees, and the next lowest was September 30, 2016 at 52.2 degrees.
But for most of us we live in south Alabama or north Florida where it's suppose to be hot this time of year. One more weather item, we haven't had a very active hurricane season so far this year, but we are about a month out from the peak of the season and they are talking about this season getting a lot more active at any time, so pay attention to what the weather people tell you and follow the instructions from you local authorities and be ready to take whatever action that is necessary to stay safe as we move into the heart of this hurricane season.
Well, this is just some of my rambling thoughts on dog days and the weather for what it's worth, not much I would think. The Alger Sullivan Historical Society meets the third Tuesday of the month at the Leach House Museum in Century at the corner of 4th street and Jefferson Avenue, come join us and consider becoming a member.
