SUM · Now boarding
How many days until summer?
Summer falls on ….
Counted in your own time zone, —.
This counts to 1 June, the start of meteorological summer. The astronomical summer — the solstice — falls three weeks later, between 20 and 22 June.
Two summers, three weeks apart
Meteorologists split the year into four fixed three-month seasons so that records can be compared year to year: summer is June, July and August, starting on 1 June. Astronomers date it from the solstice, which drifts between 20 and 22 June because a year is not a whole number of days. Neither is wrong, and this page counts to the first because it is the one with a fixed date.
Which one people actually mean
Almost nobody asking how long until summer is asking about the solstice. They mean warm evenings, school holidays and time off — which line up far better with 1 June than with the longest day, by which point summer is already underway. The solstice is the middle of summer as much as the start of it.
Counting the other way round
Summer is one of the few countdowns people run in both directions: to the season starting, and to the specific fortnight inside it that they have booked off. The second is the one worth putting on a Lock Screen — a season is a mood, a trip is a date.
Questions
When does summer start?
1 June by the meteorological definition, used for climate records. Astronomical summer begins at the solstice, between 20 and 22 June.
Which date does this page count to?
1 June, because it is fixed. The solstice moves by up to two days from year to year.
Is it the same in the southern hemisphere?
No. The seasons are reversed — meteorological summer there begins on 1 December.