Its summer and its official this week

Its summer and its official this week

With temperatures in the 90s and high relative humidity for the past several weeks, the refrain from many DC area weather reporters has been summer has arrived early. Actually, it didnt and it never does, because the summer solstice doesnt occur until June 21 in the northern hemisphere, which last Tuesday happened here precisely at 1:16 PM EDT.

Indeed, June 21 is the longest day with the most hours of daylight in the northern hemisphere and the shortest day, marking the winter solstice, in the southern hemisphere. In fact, the suns rays are trained directly on the Tropic of Cancer, the northern most tropical latitude. Autumn in the northern hemisphere wont arrive until the sun shines directly on the equator, which will happen on September 23, with the occurrence of the fall equinox.