When do you start feeling like it’s summer? What changes in your lifestyle? How does your area change?

40 comments

1. When I turn on the AC. I put off doing anything until the evening. When everything starts to turn brown.

2. When it starts to get hot we cook outside much more. Either grilling or outdoor pizza oven will be the default method of cooking unless its something that is quickly made on the stovetop. Electric costs are way too high here to use the oven for any significant amount of time once it warms up.

3. I live in North Carolina, so somewhere around April, usually.

4. lol like early April or late March

5. When I start using the A/C in the car instead of rolling down the windows

6. Last week of May. That’s usually when the rain stops coming through every other day and temperatures even out between day and night.

   The real question is when Spring actually starts. We were swapping between freezing rain and 90F on the same day for weeks there up until about 2-3 weeks ago.

7. When the mosquitoes come out.

8. When the doors come off the Jeeps

9. Memorial Day weekend feels about right. Before then it’s usually a crapshoot between warm and sunny or cold and rainy.

   Mostly I become a lot more outdoorsy and adventurous. Winter is cold and miserable and something to be endured until warm weather returns.

10. We always joke around here that the first day of summer is July 5th, with the spring rains hanging around just long enough to mess up Independence Day

11. When it’s still light out at 8pm and not cold outside even at night. We spend a lot more time in our yard in general and are outside most of the weekend. Swimming, fishing, hiking, crawdad hunting, dig out the 4 wheelers.

12. When you stop seeing the sun and you need a windbreaker and a beanie to go outside, you know it’s summer here.

13. For me, summer begins unofficially at Memorial Day weekend and ends at Labor Day weekend (even though it can be pretty warm throughout September).

    I endeavor to be outside more. Summer means everything is green, it is warm, and the days are quite long.

14. I’m in a beach town on the Great Lakes. There’s no one here from Labor Day to Memorial Day. The population probably triples or more during the summer. There’s shops and restaurants that are only open during tourist season.

    Lots and lots of time outside, morning swims at the lake, hit the ice cream stand, grill stuff for dinner, go out on a boat, and all of the stereotypical summer stuff.

15. In Arkansas it’s when the humidity arrives.

16. When we start hitting the mid 90s on a regular basis. Nothing changes in my lifestyle except I try to stay inside as much as humanly possible. As far as how the area changes, all the grass turns brown.

17. I can already feel it now. It’s feeling amazing

18. Depends on the year. Sometimes April, sometimes July.

    It makes work more miserable, but outside of that, I like summer.

19. This weekend! Now it’s so nice and cool and spring like for a month. Flowers are still popping up and everything is light green.

    This weekend it’s going to be almost 80 degrees. Summer life in New England is valued because it’s short! It’ll be foliage and apple picking season in 4 short months. I had all our vacations planned by Jan. Summer means beach and open windows and sliders. Our diet changes. I have the grill outside my kitchen slider and will grill all week. The farm stands in front of farm families will open all day everyday. I can run out 5 minutes away and get fresh tomatoes and corn and potatoes picked that day. Often you have to wait a couple minutes for corn so they can run out and pick more. There will be all kinds of chopped salads in the fridge. Lots of fruit.

    Fresh strawberries and blueberries. Hiking this weekend we were looking at the trails with the most blueberry bushes.

    The pool opens, wildlife has gone bonkers. I’ll be in Vermont this week, Camping on the beach in Maine next month, and out on the tip of cape cod, camping during the Pleiades meteor shower.

    There’s summer concerts in every town and outdoor movies on the town squares.

    Fried clams and Lobster! Burgers and Steaks on the grill. Corn on the cob. Homemade ice cream.

20. It stops being Not-Summer and starts being Summer sometime in April or early May. It was actually a little late this year due to the wet Not-Summer we had.

    My area changes from tolerable to “stay inside at all costs” which also happens to be the biggest change in my lifestyle.

21. In San Francisco, summer is three weeks long at the end of September, beginning of October.

22. Memorial Day for me

23. When it starts raining every day.

24. Once it’s consistently over 70

25. Probably early to mid April. Basically whenever it starts raining at 3:27 in the afternoon lol

26. It’s summer when I walk outside and my glasses fog up. What changes is that I stop going outside except to swim.

    Maryland humidity is so nasty. 🥵

27. May kicks off Summer usually from NC onwards

    I live in Georgia now, the humidity really starts ramping up and it’s lovely

28. I’ve experienced hot weather as early as February but consistent summer weather probably starts around April or May.

29. Arizonan here. Once we have our first 100 degree day then I start thinking of it as summer. Same on the other end. Summer ends when it becomes consistently less than 100.

30. San Francisco summer is pretty much the same as San Francisco winter.

    It’s still chilly until Sept/Oct when it gets warm for a bit, and then before you know it, it’s cold again.

31. In Phoenix, summer starts when it hits 100 degrees for the first time. This happened in April this year.

32. For me summer unofficially is Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend.

    Weather isn’t a factor in determination here (WI). It’s been a COLD spring here. 🙄

33. Now that I’m a homeowner, when I stop heating my house and start running the A/C. I worry much more about heating and cooling now that I’m paying the bills, I totally understand Dads that are super uptight about adjusting the thermostat.

34. I was driving at about 8:30pm and I saw light brightening clouds. That starts being summer in my mind.

    Then all the flowers. Snowdrops mean spring. Buttercups and lilacs start indicating late spring. Peonies and roses mean summer.

    We are in the buttercup lilac phase up here.

    Then you have the beach area tourists and snowbirds. When they start coming back in numbers it is officially summer. We have had them coming back in drips in the last few weekends but they’ll be coming in force in the next few weeks.

35. Not a fan of summer. In southern New England it is when the humidity arrives consistently and evening temps don’t dip below 65. That would be mid June.

36. When I can hear the cicadas whirring in the trees.

    I also used to see fireflies wandering above the grasses in the evenings, but haven’t seen any in years. ;_;

37. When Manhattan begins to smell like rotten trash.

38. when lake superior is warm enough to swim in (45 degrees and up )

39. You mean hurricane season?

40. I live in Phoenix. There’s absolutely no doubt about when it is summer here. And it’s not when it’s 95. It’s not when it’s 100. It’s when it’s over 100, closer to 110!