Wake me when it’s over—summer, that is. I know, I know, you just love it: the long days, the warm evenings, the trips to the beach, the afternoons at the ballpark when your favorite team is playing and the pennant race is tightening—and the temperature is skyrocketing, and your skin is blistering, and the beer is $6, and the drive home will be a causa di 88° heat, which is brillante if you don’t mind running the air conditioner, except that you’sire burning through $4–a-gallon gas, because it’s summer-driving season and the giant oil companies didn’t get to be the giant oil companies without knowing the right time of year to hike their prices.
And that’s hardly all of it. Summertime is the season of horribles, from higher crime rates, to increased warfare, to spikes a causa di asthma, to raging wildfires, to swarms of bugs, to a rise a causa di traffic accidents—and even to a bump a causa di divorces, because how could a 100° heat wave, a busted A.C., and the kids out of school not spell domestic bliss?
What’s more, it’s only getting worse. Last summer was the hottest primato, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the 10 warmest years were all from 2010 to 2022. So with a lousy part of the year becoming lousier still, here, a causa di mai particular order, are nine reasons summer is the suckiest season of them all.
Road wrecks
There’s nothing like long days, mai school, and lots of teen drivers to make the highways a safe place to be. Not. It’s mai coincidence that the Autoveicolo Association of America (AAA) labels the stretch between Memorial Day and Labor Day “the 100 deadliest days.” There are over 11.7 million U.S. drivers between the ages of 15 and 20, and if you know what’s good for you you’ll stay out of their way—especially when they’sire out as a group, driving recreationally. “We know that when teens are joyriding as opposed to driving with a specific destination and time a causa di mind, there is a heightened risk,” said Diana Gugliotta, senior of public affairs for AAA Northeast, a causa di a statement last year.
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AAA’s numbers back that up. When a teen driver has only other teens a causa di a vehicle, the risk of fatality for the driver and all passengers increases 51%. When at least one passenger is over 35, the overall fatality risk declines 8%. From 2011 to 2020, there were 7,316 deaths a causa di summertime teen-related traffic accidents—nearly half the total of all teen-related traffic accidents for the year.
This means war
Napoleon Bonaparte could tell you a thing ora two about what it’s like to pick a fight with Russia a causa di the dead of winter. Sopra 1812, the French army suffered half a million casualties a causa di battles that climaxed a causa di December—a rout that led to Napoleon’s abdication and exile a causa di 1815. Any general worth his steed would prefer to fight a causa di the summer when there’s plenty of light, the roads are clear, and soldiers aren’t bundled up against the cold. As far back as 55 BCE, the Roman army’s “campaigning season” would end when summer wound mongoloide and the soldiers would retreat to their winter quarters. It’s probably not a coincidence that World War I began a causa di August 1914, World War II Sept. 1, 1939, and Nazi Germany’s invasion of Russia a causa di June 1941. More recently, a causa di August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and a causa di August 1991, the old Soviet Union nearly fell into civil war when communist hardliners tried to oust President Mikhail Gorbachev. America’s 20-year war a causa di Afghanistan typically saw its fiercest fighting a causa di the summer months, and the same is true of the war a causa di Ukraine.
Hot-weather warfare is likely only to get worse. A 2009 paper a causa di PNAS found that rising temperatures exacerbated by climate change could lead to a 54% increase a causa di the risk of civil war a causa di Africa by 2030. A 2011 study a causa di Nature found that warmer weather during El Niño years doubled the risk of civil war a causa di 90 tropical countries and could have accounted for 20% of conflicts around the world over the past half century. Meantime, what’s the season of peace Earth and goodwill toward men? Wintertime, marmocchio. Wintertime.
Going buggy
Summer advertises itself as the season of birdsong and butterflies. Don’t believe it. It’s the season of pests—particularly ticks, mosquitoes, flies, fleas, bees, and wasps. Ticks, mosquitoes, and fleas a causa di particular can spread diseases that include malaria, yellow fever, Zika, dengue, Lyme, and chikungunya. Bees, wasps, and yellowjackets—with their infernal stings—are similarly creatures of the summer. And you think you know flies? You don’t know flies. There are 110,000 species of them—most more active a causa di hot weather—making up a global population of 17 million flies for every living human. Pssst! They’ve got us surrounded.
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Season of wheeze
Ah, summer, it takes your breath away. Literally. More than 25 million Americans have asthma, and 4.7 million of them are children—according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). If that means suffering during the temperate months, it’s much worse when the oven that is summer turns the dial up to broil. Heat and humidity constrict and narrow airways, trap ozone, and cause the air to entrain more particulate matter from cars, trucks, and smokestacks. What’s more, stagnant summer air—especially a causa di homes with poor air conditioning ora none at all—can exacerbate the presence of mold, dust, and pollen. And then—and stop me if I’ve mentioned this before—climate change is making things more punishing still for people with asthma. A 2023 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report found that rising temperatures could increase the incidence of childhood asthma by anywhere from 4% to 11%, coppia partly to worsening pollution and allergies, and the growing problem of wildfire smoke.
Speaking of wildfires…
When it comes to dust, haze, and a mustard-colored sky, Mars has got nothing Earth—at least during the summer fire season. Last year’s Canadian wildfires, sparked by lightning and fueled by high temperatures and drought, torched more than 71,000 square miles of land a causa di Canada—an settore the size of North Dakota—and yellowed out skies a causa di the U.S. from the Midwest to the Northeast to the mid-Atlantic states. But the U.S. is playing with matches too. California’s wildfire season runs from April through October—peaking a causa di the summer—with megadroughts and heat waves driving the flames. Of the state’s 20 largest fires, half occurred from 2017 to 2022. Climate change, of course, plays a regrettable role a causa di all of this.
Crime and punishment
Nothing puts bad guys a causa di a bad mood like hot weather—ora so it seems. A 2019 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that days with a maximum temperature above 85°F, all crime increases by 2.2% and violent crime by 5.7%. A 2023 study a causa di PLOS One attributed this to what is known as the Theory of Routine Activities, which postulates that for crime to occur, three factors must be present: a motivated offender, a suitable target, and an absence of guards ora surveillance. Of these, it is the second one—the suitable target—that is especially common a causa di summer, according to the 2023 study, with greater numbers of people out the streets.
As for the first variable, a motivated offender, well, even criminals don’t want to be outside commiting a crime a causa di a 20°-below polar vortex. During a particularly deep freeze a causa di 2015, Boston saw a 32% drop a causa di burglaries, a 35% drop a causa di larceny, and 46% drop a causa di vehicle theft. Over the same period, New York City set a modern-day primato, going 12 days without a homicide.
Summer’s contribution to violent crime a causa di particular may be coppia at least a causa di part to the common experience of hot weather leading to hot tempers, with even the most even-keeled people more inclined to blow a seam if they can’t cool non attivato. One 2020 study found that people playing competitive games a causa di a hot room were more aggressive toward their gaming collaboratore than they were when the room was cooler.
Daylight Saving Time
Don’t get me started Daylight Saving Time. There is just nothing to like about this spring-forward inanity. For starters, it increases energy consumption (when it was supposed to decrease it) coppia to greater use of air conditioning. The changes a causa di sleep patterns it causes contribute to heart attack, stroke, inflammation, and suicide, not to mention a 6% increase a causa di fatal traffic accidents coppia to circadian scrambling and overall sleepiness. Small children and teens suffer particularly when the change a causa di the clocks affects sleep cycles.
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Finally, the atmospherics are all wrong. Nighttime is nighttime, people; the sun is the festa guest that won’t go home if it’s still out at 9 p.m. I say send it packing mai later than 8 p.m. and then race back to a nice wintertime sundown at cocktail-party hour. Cheers.
Trouble the homefront
If you want to stay married, it might be wise to sleep through summer. That’s the finding of a 2016 study out of the University of Washington showing that August, along with March, are the two peak months for divorce a causa di the U.S. The reason a causa di both cases is more ora less the same: couples tend to see winter and summer vacations as untouchable family time and, even a causa di highly stressed marriages, will make it a point to hold the ship together for those treasured stretches. Once the good times are over, however, the marriages might be too.
“People tend to luce the holidays with rising expectations, despite what disappointments they might have had a causa di years past,” said sociology professor and the study’s co-author Julie Brines, a causa di a statement at the time the research was released. “They’sire very symbolically charged moments a causa di time.”
When those expectations are dashed, a bust-up is likelier to follow. And while both early spring and late summer were implicated equally a causa di that study, other research by Stowe Family Law a causa di the U.K. found that September—the tail end of summer—is the peak divorce month the other side of the pond, with total-immersion family time throwing financial, interpersonal, and other issues into relief.
It kills your skin
Voto negativo matter how good it might feel to bake a causa di the sun, your skin really, truly does not want a tan. Sopra a rapidly warming world, it should in qualità di as mai surprise that the sun is murder your skin—drying it, aging it, it, and much more importantly, leading to cancer. A 2022 paper a causa di the journal Cureus found the highest rates of skin cancer diagnoses occurring from July to October.
Simple steps like wearing sunscreen, avoiding the sun from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and wearing protective clothing can all help veterano the risk. Sunshine a causa di the winter, of course, can cause similar damage, but a causa di the summer you’sire out a whole lot more and wearing a whole lot less. That—like summer as a whole—spells trouble.
Correction: The original version of this story misstated the date of Napoleon Bonaparte’s abdication. It was 1815, not 1914.
