A few days ago (last Thursday), the official time of sunrise and sunset at Birmingham was 6:38. Well, that needs a little explaining—one was a.m. and one was p.m. When autumn arrives each year and also spring, the days and nights are supposed to be equal in length—12 hours each. However, there is a slight lag time, so it does not happen on exactly the first day of spring and autumn.
We are in a transition time of the year when we go from summer into autumn. For the last several days, that has been very obvious on the old backyard thermometer. Weather people consider autumn as starting on September 1 and winter on December 1.
We can have extreme heat as late as September. At Birmingham, we have experienced 100-degree heat as late as September 2. That happened in 1925 during a historic heat wave that set an all-time high for the state of Alabama of 112 at Centreville on September 5, 1925. Birmingham exceeded 100 degrees 10 days that month only to have a double whammy later and have 6 days 100 or hotter just two years later in 1927.
Our average high and low is 88/67 at the beginning of September cooling to 80/58 by the last day. By the end of October, the average high/low is 70/46. The average date of our first freeze is November 8. The earliest one on record for Birmingham was October 18, 1938. Amazingly,
I saw a small tree completely decked out in autumn color yesterday at the far west end of Deerfoot Parkway at the intersection of Old Springville Road in Northeast Jefferson County. Time marches on–too fast it seems.
