No heat records in sight (yet) despite the dog days
Published: Tuesday, Jul 23rd 2024, 11:20
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The dog days - traditionally the hottest days of the year - began on Tuesday (today). However, the weather service Meteonews assumes that the previous temperature records for this year in Switzerland will not be broken in the near future.
Temperatures are set to rise in the north of Switzerland in the coming days, writes meteorologist Roger Perret in the weather service's meteoblog. On Saturday, 30 degrees and more are possible, as is already the case in the south of Switzerland.
However, the previous annual records of 33.5 degrees on July 15 in Chur and 34.3 degrees on Monday in Biasca TI are likely to remain. This is because temperatures are likely to fall well below 30 degrees again on Sunday - at least in the north.
However, the dog days will last until August 23. It is therefore "quite possible, almost to be expected" that the heat records for 2024 will still fall, says meteorologist Roger Perret. This is because the hottest days of the year usually fall between July 23 and August 23.
Due to its inertia, the earth's surface only warms up slowly over the course of the year. In addition, a stable high-pressure situation often occurs in our regions at this time of year.
"Dog days": Astronomical origin
According to meteorologist Perret, the Dog Days take their name from the constellation "Great Dog" with its main star Sirius. The Dog Days begin with the first rising of this star visible from Earth.
The ancient Greeks and Romans coined the term "dog days" and believed that the days would be particularly hot at this time due to the fusion of the fire of Sirius and the sun.
However, due to the precession of the Earth's axis, the time of the dog days has shifted by around four weeks, according to Perret. The rising of the star Sirius can now only be observed at the end of August. Nevertheless, the hottest weeks of the year are still traditionally referred to as the dog days.
The dictionary describes precession as the retrograde movement of the point of intersection (vernal equinox) between the celestial equator and the ecliptic caused by the gyroscopic movement of the Earth's axis over a period of around 26,000 years.
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