My instincts (and analytical skills, I guess) have not failed me. For almost 50 years I was able to pick out, with nothing other than my eye and maybe my nose, what I called the "top" of the summer in Minnesota. It was the day when the sky was the bluest and the light the most pure and after which all days led to fall or school or, later, the cold winds that start to come down from Canada. It was the day after which snow became at least a plausible concept -- in the back of a brain that was vigorously denying all of it -- three months hence. Of course that day is typically summer solstice (but not always because this is a subjective judgment) in MN but I didn't know that as a kid nor did I pay much attention to the calendar later.
I walked out my front door at about 2 pm today (Fort Lauderdale) and thought to myself "huh...this looks like a MN top." But this time I knew it it was only late March and I knew there will be no snow three months hence. I figured that there must be something about the angle of the sun cutting through the atmosphere. Sure enough, when I looked, I hit it right on the numbers. Here is the angle of the sun by month in each location (Ft. Lauderdale, St. Paul). Peak angle in MN corresponds to about the end of March in FL. It's March 30 today. I still got it.
(technically it looks like the peak in MN is in June but let's call it a range...)
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