SUMMER HAS ARRIVED!
Summer is one of the four seasons and is the warmest of them. It lasts from the summer solstice to the next equinox, from the moment when the Sun in its apparent movement in the sky reaches the greatest positive declination (reaches the greatest apparent height), until the moment when the Sun passes through the plane in which the Earth's equator is. Therefore, at the beginning of summer the day is the longest and the night the shortest, while at the end of summer, at the beginning of autumn, the day and night are equally long. In the northern hemisphere, it lasts from approximately June 20 to September 23. In the southern hemisphere it lasts from about December 20 to about March 21. Summer is a time of school holidays and harvest work in agriculture.
THIS YEAR SUMMER BEGINS: June 21, 2021 at 5:31 p.m.
The onset of summer does not always happen on the same day, the current summer can begin between June 20 and 22, depending on when the Sun reaches its highest point. The Gregorian calendar is also responsible for the different days of early summer. Since according to him the year lasts approximately 365, 242199 days, every four years a leap year occurs which disrupts the beginning of summer. It is the day with the most sunlight because the sun’s rays fall to the ground at a direct angle and cause warming which we call summer. The greatest heat occurred in the summer of 2003 when the heat wave in Europe was so strong that it killed 70,000 people. The coldest summer in Croatia in the last ten years was in 2014, when there were no long hot periods, as meteorologist Zoran Vakula wrote in his Meteo corner.
In the past, the first day of summer was celebrated in various ways. The Celts and Slavs celebrated the first days of summer with big fires, but also by dancing to help increase the sun’s energy. Today, the first day of summer is celebrated almost nowhere. One of the most popular celebrations is in the United Kingdom, where thousands of people gather around Stonehenge and expect the first dawn of a summer day.
Prepared by: Astrid Werbolle