Good weather disguises the fact that the days are getting shorter
My early memories of holidays in the United States in the 1970s and 80s were of temperatures explained in Fahrenheit and never in Celsius. I learned then that 70F (21C) or above was warm weather, and that 80F (27C) or above was hot.
If the mercury rose above 90F (32F), it was getting seriously uncomfortable.
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Hide AdSome years ago, I was flicking through weather statistics and looked at all the extreme temperatures for the various parts of the UK and for the Republic.
I noticed that Northern Ireland was the only part of the British Isles that had never been above 90 in the Fahrenheit scale or below zero in either (minus 18C).
England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic had all been both above and below those extremes.
That Northern Ireland had not done so is a reflection of our mild weather, influenced by the Gulf Stream and also, a Met Office expert once told me, by Lough Neagh.
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Hide AdIn 2010, however, it did. During the exceptionally cold spell at the end of that year (a year when I had to deal with the panic of burst pipes), Northern Ireland went just below zero in the Fahrenheit scale (in Castlederg).
It has yet to go above 90F, having only ever got to 87F (30.8C).
According to the Met Office, we might be approaching 90F later this week, with temperatures edging towards 30C (well into the 80s).
This exceptionally good weather might help to disguise the unwelcome fact that the days are now getting shorter — a wistful point in the calendar.
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Hide AdBut I notice it much less in America or the Mediterranean, where the weather is so hot and obviously summery in July and August that it is hard to have any sense of decline.
In Northern Ireland, however, we are all familiar with July 12 weather that might de damp, and even, on occasions, laced with a very vague hint of autumn — which makes me feel gloomy.
• Ben Lowry (@BenLowry2) is News Letter deputy editor