It's a nice fall day on the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve north of Pawhuska. The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is the largest preserved tract of native Tallgrass Prairie in the world. The Nature Conservancy manages the land. CHRISTOPHER SMITH/ Tulsa World
Here we are. Back up in the mid-80s after just a taste of late fall and winter.
It was nice while it lasted. I made two pots of chili, a giant pot of chicken tortilla soup, drank a few pumpkin and darker-than-I-normally-prefer-when-it’s-hot-outside beers. I dusted off the sweaters and jackets and even found my favorite old had.
Then, 86 on Monday. A cold front today will knock down temps for a bit, but it’s back up there this weekend.
It could be an Indian summer.
Now, just typing that gives me pause. It feels…like we could probably come up with a better term for when we get unseasonably warm weather after a substantial period of cool weather, usually in mid-autumn. That comes from the National Weather Service’s
actual definition.
Before we get into the etymology, let’s see if it actually is an Indian summer.
No, it’s not. The spell of cool weather we had earlier this month was the abnormality, not necessarily the weather we’re experiencing now. The Indian summer weather sets in later in the season this far south, after we’ve had a more extensive period of cool weather and hard frosts. We had one day in Tulsa when we hit 32 degrees.
The weather during an Indian summer is also calm, with high pressure that leads to calm winds and a haze in the air (and if you’ve been outside today, you’ll notice the winds aren’t calm. At all. And won’t be for the
rest of the week).
So if we have an Indian summer, it will most likely be a little later in the fall season.
Now for the term Indian summer seems to be pretty ubiquitous. As described in the link above from the National Weather Service, or
this one, or
here used by the Farmer’s Almanac, it’s a common weather term.
It’s history and origin is a bit hazy. It is believed to have first appeared in late 1700s literature. In that use, an Indian summer was a warm period before the hard freeze of winter of renewed conflict between settlers and American Indians. Other possible uses had little to do with attacks on settlers and more to do with an increased period of hunting for settlers and American Indians alike. It also has a history in describing the predominant winds from the southwest in the desert Southwest, seen as a gift from the gods. Or, having nothing to do with American Indians, it has been used to describe a period of calm weather for cargo ships sailing across the Indian Ocean.
What do you think? Is the term Indian summer offensive? What would you replace it with? Leave it in the comments. And you should follow me on the Twitters
@jerrywofford.
--Jerry Wofford
