Is this warm weather an “Indian Summer?” AMHERST, Mass. (WWLP) – The term “Indian Summer” gets used a lot during a warm-up in the fall, but there are certain criteria that must be met for it to actually be an “Indian Summer” day. This past weekend’s high temperature tied a record on Saturday, and set a new one Sunday. Temps in the low to mid 80s were ten to fifteen degrees above normal. “I wouldn’t believe that that was the first weekend of fall. I knew it was, I just can’t believe that it was because it was so warm and it was more like summer,” said Susmit Pudasaini, a student at UMass. Amherst. In fact many people have been labeling this weather as an “Indian Summer,” but not so fast. UMass. climatologist Michael Rawlins told 22News there are two main criteria to meet the scientific definition of “Indian Summer,” and our latest warm weather only met one of them. “Although we were above seventy degrees Fahrenheit we haven’t reached that first hard frost of the season, so really, what we saw this past weekend was not an Indian Summer,” said Rawlins. Once we’ve had our first hard frost, any autumn warm-up into the 70s or higher will make it officially an “Indian summer.” But where does the term come from? While it’s difficult to be sure, according to the Farmers Almanac this period was named an Indian Summer, because it was a time when Native Americans would start hunting again after a period of cold weather. This typically occurs from October through mid-November. Not everyone’s happy with our recent warm-up. “To be honest I’d rather a huge blizzard right now. I want to go up to Vermont and go skiing, I’m kind of sick of the warmth actually. I’m done being sweaty,” said Gabriel Shapiro a Hampshire College Student. We normally see our first hard frost around here by mid-October. 22News called the Native American Inter Tribal Council of Western Massachusetts to talk about the use of this term, so far we haven’t heard back.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 21:59:25 +0000