Summer beats on in longwinded fashion

If you've found yourself commenting to your friends, family, or coworkers on the prolonged warm weather, you probably wouldn't be surprised to know that Shanghai's summers are actually getting longer by the year. A lot longer, in fact. Shanghai Daily reports that since 1970, the length of summer has increased by 50%, from a measly 100 days back then to a whopping average of 150+ days a year. So if you crunch the numbers, that means summer takes up more than 40% of the year.

So far, summer has trudged on for a whopping 156 days this year. What's more, Shanghai summers only averaged a total of 112 days length in the previous decade. Which means summer has gotten 40 days longer in the past ten years. Sounds almost biblical, no?

We never knew that the length of a season was derived from the temperature- we always thought it was a pretty formal affair with a date set long in advance. In any case, fall will be declared once the temperature falls below 22 degrees Celsius for five consecutive days. And since it's such a lovely grey, rainy day, we're probably looking at the tail end of summer as we type. Who knew?

P.S. This has nothing to do with global warming, right?