The Weather Here
Musings of an amateur owned weather stationWednesday, August 1, 2007
Dog Days
The term "Dog Days" was coined by the ancient Romans, who called these days caniculares dies (days of the dogs) after Sirius (the "Dog Star"), the brightest star in the heavens besides the Sun.
Popularly believed to be an evil time "when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies" (from Brady’s Clavis Calendarium, 1813).
The Dog Days originally were the days when Sirius, the Dog Star, rose just before or at the same time as sunrise, which is no longer true owing to precession of the equinoxes. The ancients sacrificed a brown dog at the beginning of the Dog Days to appease the rage of Sirius, believing that that star was the cause of the hot, sultry weather.
The Old Farmer's Almanac lists the traditional timing of the Dog Days as the 40 days beginning July 3 and ending August 11, coinciding with the ancient heliacal (at sunrise) rising of the Dog Star, Sirius.
Here we are looking at the mid to upper 90's all the way through the weekend .. ouch .. make sure your dogs have plenty of water. Add to all this it looks like our air quality is getting worse and the pollen count is going up ... yech!
Archives
July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 October 2009 June 2010 February 2011
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]