The University of Massachusetts in Amherst will host a summer solstice celebration at sunrise and sunset.
SPRINGFIELD – The first day of summer will not bring any surprises for residents in Western Massachusetts.
“ It’s going to be a very uneventful beginning to summer,” said abc40 chief meteorologist Ed Carroll.
Carroll said summer will officially begin at 1:16 p.m. on Tuesday and temperatures will not get higher than the low 80s.
“It will be a nice summer day and later in the week it will be wet and cool,” he said.
Residents encountered a harsh winter with debilitating winter storms that collapsed home and municipal building roofs and left many people stranded in their homes for days. It also cost cities and towns thousands of dollars in extra manpower and supplies to remove the snow.
“We had a rough winter, but there is really no way to predict how the summer will go,” Carroll said.
After the difficult winter, residents were then hit by a series of tornadoes that ravaged the area on June 1. The tornadoes severely damaged neighborhoods in Springfield, Monson, West Springfield and other communities.
Carroll said the tornadoes are not an indicator for a particularly difficult summer.
“There is really no way to predict what the temperatures will be this season, but I don’t think we will be having a heat wave anytime soon,” he said.
The University of Massachusetts in Amherst will host a summer solstice celebration at 5 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. The public is invited to witness sunrise and sunset associated with the summer solstice among the standing stones of the UMass Amherst Sunwheel. These events mark the astronomical change of season when days are longest and nights are shortest in the Northern hemisphere.
Astronomer Judith Young will be on hand to discuss the astronomical cause of the sun’s solstice, or standstill.
