Summer Cold Fronts

     When we humans in the Mid-Atlantic States, as elsewhere, feel lazy and worn after days of heat and humidity in summer, nothing is more welcome than weather called a cold front.  Summer cold fronts are the most wonderful weather of any time of the year.  Breezes are cool and refreshing when we need them, a joy to experience and a welcome relief from several days of stifling heat and mugginess.  In a cold front one feels vigorous and alive, instead of lethargic.
     Summer is the prettiest season of the year in the Middle Atlantic States, but also the most uncomfortable for us humans because of the heat and humidity that saps our ambitions.  But the landscape in this area in summer is lush-green as a result of warm, sunny days and rainfall.  And the beautiful scenery here is unsurpassed during a cold front, including clear views of distant wooded hills because of low moisture in the air.  The sky during cold fronts is deep blue because of low humidity and is punctuated with puffy-white, cumulus clouds of unending shapes and sizes.  With imagination, many of those clouds become aerial pictures of animals, ships and so on.
     Summer cold fronts can happen anytime from mid-May into much of September, but are most welcome during the serene, sluggish days of July and August when life activities seem to slow in the overwhelming heat.  Cold fronts are caused by cold air from the Arctic tundra around the north pole that sweeps south across Canada and the United States.
     By mid-summer, the feverish activities of spring reproduction are done and many parent creatures relax and recuperate from the strain of raising young and before they prepare for the coming winter.  They probably have innate feelings of peace and contentment, "the joys of the good life", felt at no other time of year.  Meanwhile, through the sunlight, heat, rain and abundant food in July, August and into September, wild plants and young animals grow, mature and gain strength for the rigors of the coming winter.  
     I, personally, would like to experience the comfort of a cold front that lasted all summer.  But, unfortunately, each summer cold front lasts only a few days, then it's back to heat and mugginess coming north from the Gulf of Mexico.  But if we didn't have the uncomfortable conditions, we wouldn't appreciate as well the occasional cold fronts when they do arrive here.  Enjoy summer cold fronts while they last.