Editor's Corner

After an unusually warm weekend in the Bay Area last week, I returned to find this topic in my mailbox from someone having an unusually warm autumn in Utah. One of our favorite clients asked if we’d ever covered the term Indian summer, and I don’t think we have. I always thought it was a hot spell in late September or October, in an area where the weather was cooling off by this time. According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, that’s not quite right. Here’s what the old farmers have to say:

When Is Indian Summer?

Here are criteria for an Indian summer:

· As well as being warm, the atmosphere during Indian summer is hazy or smoky, there is no wind, the barometer is standing high, and the nights are clear and chilly.

· A moving, cool, shallow polar air mass is converting into a deep, warm, stagnant anticyclone (high pressure) system, which has the effect of causing the haze and large swing in temperature between day and night.

· The time of occurrence is important: The warm days must follow a spell of cold weather or a good hard frost.

The conditions described above must occur between St. Martin’s Day (November 11) and November 20. For over 200 years, The Old Farmer’s Almanac has adhered to the saying, “If All Saints’ (November 1) brings out winter, St. Martin’s brings out Indian summer.”

Why Is It Called Indian Summer?

Why isIndian summer called Indian summer? There are many theories. Some say it comes from the early Algonquian Native Americans, who believed that the condition was caused by a warm wind sent from the court of their southwestern god, Cautantowwit.

The most probable origin of the term, in our view, goes back to the very early settlers in New England. Each year they would welcome the arrival of a cold wintry weather in late October when they could leave their stockades unarmed. But then came a time when it would suddenly turn warm again, and the Native Americans would decide to have one more go at the settlers. “Indian summer,” the settlers called it.

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

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