Monday, October 13, 2008

Indian Summer

While on our way the mall, I noticed that the weather was warm this day, while it was very cold on the previous days. My husband told me that it is called "Indian Summer". I was asking back, "what does it mean?"

Indian Summer is a name given to a period of sunny, warm weather in autumn, not long before winter. It is a period of mild weather occurring in late autumn, following a seasonable cold spell. For example, we had two whole days of Indian summer this year, and then it turned cold again.

An early American writer described Indian Summer well when he wrote, "The air is perfectly quiescent and all is stillness, as if Nature, after her exertions during the Summer, were now at rest." This passage belongs to the writer John Bradbury and was written nearly an "eternity" ago, back in 1817. But this passage is as relevant today as it was way back then. The term "Indian Summer" dates back to the 18th century in the United States. It can be defined as "any spell of warm, quiet, hazy weather that may occur in October or even early November." Basically, autumn is a transition season as the thunderstorms and severe weather of the summer give way to a tamer, calmer weather period before the turbulence of the winter commences.

6 comments:

Ben said...

Hi again. Hehe Indian Summer. The weather things.That new to me.Keep it up.Well in China there are different.

julie king said...

thanks so much for visiting my blog and your kind words! your photo is lovely and i enjoyed learning more about the origin of term indian summer. you have a very nice blog!

Niar said...

thanks to teach us about Indian summer grace...
it's really new for me...
I just have 2 seasons in Indonesia..
dry season and rainy season.
so I never felt autumn, spring, summer, and winter.
hope one day I can go overseas..
keep writing ^-^

Dan said...

hello
en suisse aussi c'est l'été indien
belle photo aussi

Glennis said...

Very well put Grace, enjoy the Indian Summer all too soon winters chills will arrive.
Thanks for your visit.

Yara said...

WOOOW!! I love it! im in the UAE so its only summer most of the time and during half of november until the half of march, it's windy rainy and cold but it doesn't get near snow! :P i love the indian summer and i wish i can actually see one. my english teacher was talking about it and told us to look up pics of it and honestly, this is the best i've seen so far ;) keep up the good work :)