Summer is officially back in Oklahoma

By John David Sutter

Published: June 21, 2008

It's summer. And if you're reading this at 6:59 a.m., it's been that way for 12 hours now.

The summer solstice occurred in our time zone at 6:59 p.m. Friday, according to the U.S. Navy. Really, it occurred at that moment all over the world, since at that minute, the sun stopped moving northward in our Northern Hemisphere sky, and began moving south, according to an astronomer.

Or, taken from space, the Northern Hemisphere was tilted most directly at the sun at that moment. No matter whether it was day or night, said University of Oklahoma physics and astronomy professor Ed Baron, the solstice happened just the same.

Contrary to popular belief, Earth is not closest to the sun during the summer. That happens during the winter. The tilt is what makes the difference.

The solstice also marks the longest day of the year. You may look at your calendar and see that that's today. Technically it occurred yesterday, but since the solstice happened at 11:59 p.m. Universal Time, some calendar companies seem to round up.

The division of seasons and the alignment of the sun is an event celebrated all over the world.

Baron recalls one summer solstice he spent in Sweden. It never really got dark, he said, only twilight, and people threw all kinds of celebrations for the longest day of the year.

Baron says it's not so easy getting all this time stuff exact.

"The real important thing to get across to readers is that this is real important — knowing exactly what time it is. And we spend a lot of money figuring out exactly what time it is,” he said.

Where does all this money go?

"The Navy spends a lot of money on this because they want to know where their submarines are going, with the nukes on 'em,” he said.

Baron said this business of getting time right — and of pinpointing the solstice exactly — has gone through many phases. There was Stonehenge, of course, and then the radio monitors that measure time off points in the night sky. Now the preferred method, the most exact, he said, is using GPS satellites that bounce signals off each other.

All that work, and climatologists like Gary McManus still go by a different calendar.

McManus, who is the assistant state climatologist at the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, said his measure of spring — which ends on May 31 — tells a tale of haves and have-nots in Oklahoma.

The Oklahoma Panhandle is in a record drought. And this was the fourth wettest spring on record for northeast Oklahoma, he said.

Clayton had the wettest spring, with 26.8 inches of rain, he said. Boise City, in the Panhandle, had the driest, with only an inch, he said.

Summer is expected to go one of two ways, McManus said. Either it will be cool and wet, or dry and hot.

"Last year, overall, we had the cool and wet, he said. "And a lot of the state so far is off to a wet start.”

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