In The Dog Days Of An Alabama Summer, Don’t Blame The Dog Star For The Heat

By Adam Jones
University of Alabama

The dog days of summer are here. It’s hot, sometimes miserably so. Humans are hot. Dogs are hot. All creatures great and small are hot.

Heat is not the reason for the dog days of summer, though. At least, not directly.

The phrase traces to ancient times when the Greeks, and then the Romans, thought the alignment of the sun and the brightest nighttime star in the sky brought added heat to the summer. The five to six weeks Sirius, called the Dog Star, rises with the sun does coincide with some of the hottest days of the year, so it marked the miserable days of summer in the ancient calendars.

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