Every season except summer is getting shorter, a sign of trouble for people and the environment

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Capital Weather Gang

Every season except summer is getting shorter, a sign of trouble for people and the environment

As summer becomes longer, fall and winter are growing shorter in the Northern Hemisphere

By Kasha Patel
Today at 12:31 p.m. EDT

In the 1950s, the seasons occurred in a predictable and relatively even pattern in the Northern Hemisphere. Flowers bloomed around April. Children planned summer adventures starting in June. Leaves dropped in September. Ski trips began in December.

But recently, the seasons have been out of whack. Over the past seven decades, researchers found high summertime temperatures are arriving earlier and lasting longer in the year because of global warming.

This summer was no exception. In parts of California, which saw its hottest summer on record, unusually warm temperatures arrived in May. Shasta Dam posted its third warmest May on record, a harbinger of a record melt season for the glaciers on the summit of Mount Shasta to its north. Sacramento logged its fifth warmest May.



Folsom Lake during a drought in Granite Bay, Calif. on Aug. 27. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)

In the Pacific Northwest, a record-breaking heat wave in late June also occurred much earlier than the region is accustomed to. On June 28, Seattle reached 108 degrees and Portland reached 116 degrees.

“The old rule for our area was typically from the Fourth of July on, you could expect some hot weather,” said Michael Brady, an economics professor at Washington State University. “So not only was the level of the temperatures unprecedented, it was also at least a couple of weeks before you would even expect high temperatures.”

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By late this century, summer could last six months, winter could be less than two

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By Kasha Patel
Kasha Patel edits and reports on the weather, climate and environment for the Capital Weather Gang at The Washington Post. Before joining The Post, she covered Earth sciences and satellite research for NASA. Twitter https://twitter.com/KashaPatel

[Kaleva]

1. I'm not exactly upset by the prospect of longer summers and shorter winters.

The article corresponds to what I've read some time ago about what is predicted to happen in the Upper Great Lakes region. The winters will be shorter and more mild while the summer, and growing season, will be warmer and longer.