Did we just have an Indian Summer? It sounds good, so I was telling everyone this past weekend what a glorious Indian Summer we were having in October. We were on the beach. The boys went skim boarding. I packed up the Roll-eeze (best beach invention evah!) – with food, drinks, and even the umbrella. My sister and her family joined us on the beach. The adults even had the chance to SUP on the bay. It had all the “hotness” of an Indian Summer. So I thought.

Well, I just got schooled… I decided while writing this post in my head last night in those last stages of consciousness that I would research the phrase. Good ole Farmer’s Almanac just proved my beautiful 85°F+ weather weekend wrong.

According to the The Old Farmer’s Almanac, an true Indian Summer must meet the following requirements:

• “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.””

I thought we had a few weeks of cold weather, but honestly, it was in the 70’s. It certainly felt cold. Now that I know what an Indian Summer is, I think I’m good with what I had this past weekend. Sun, small breezes, low tide loveliness, SUP boarding with my sister, and the boys got sandy.

A PERFECT BEACH DAY IN OCTOBER!

Stand-Up Paddle Board and the Chesapeake Bay