Why do we call them the ‘Dog Days’ of summer?

We are embarking on the hottest days of the summer climatologically, and for many this means long, hot, humid and miserable afternoons.

It’s this weather that the phrase “dog days” of summer has been attached to each year, as it’s usually when we find dogs sluggish and panting away in the shade. While this has for years become the common go-to phrase to describe the weather, the term actually originated with the stars.

If you’re a history fan, we’ll dive into a little history of what the “dog days” of summer really are and what that means for Mid-Missouri as we head into the coming weeks.

The phrase “dog days” of summer originated with Ancient Rome, one of the great civilizations of world history. While the Romans used the constellations to carry the throughout the year, we actually owe the Greeks the right to naming our modern constellation.

Due to the rotation of the Earth, the constellations rise in the nighttime sky each year around the same time. This allowed many civilizations to keep track of the time of the year until modern calendars were invented, which brings us to the “dog days” of summer.

The name, which references the hottest time of the year, is actually a reference to the sun occupying the same region of the sky as Sirius, which is the brightest star visible from Earth. It’s also a part of the constellation Canis Major, the Greater Dog. Hence the reason Sirius is often referred to as the Dog Star.

It was during this time usually from July 3 to Aug. 11 that Sirius occupies the sky and appears to rise just before the sun.

For the Greeks and Romans, this usually meant the hottest time of the year, which usually brought fever or even catastrophe.

Towards the end of July, Sirius occupies the sky and is synchronized with the sun. Because the star is the brightest that we can see, the ancient Romans believed it gave off significant heat that added to the already hot summers. It’s during this time when Sirius occupies the sky, that we usually see the long stretch of miserable weather.

The reason though has nothing to do with the star. It just so happens the reason has a lot to do with the Earth’s tilt and the seasonal lag in temperatures.

During the summer months, the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the sun, which gives us the warmer days here in Mid-Missouri.

While we are seeing our warmest stretch of weather we’ve seen all year, we are in for a treat this weekend. Cooler weather thanks to a passing cold front will knock our temperatures to reasonable levels (the upper 80s and lower 90s). It’s still summer though and temperatures will take a drastic swing back into the mid and upper 90s as we head into next week.

Looking for relief beyond next week.

Don’t bet on it, as the Climate Prediction Center as about a 40 percent chance of Mid-Missouri seeing above-average temperatures. Above average would have temperatures in Mid-Missouri above 87-88 degrees, which for many means the sultry days of summer, or as we’ve come to know it as the ‘dog days’ of summer.