Indian Summer meaning: Where did the term come from?
BRITAIN is set to bask in a glorious Indian Summer as we enter the Autumn, marking a distinct U-turn in the weather after Storms Ellen and Francis battered the country.
With the UK set to see highs of 24C over the next few days thanks to a blast of tropical Azores heat, here's what you need to know about the Indian Summer.
What is an Indian Summer?
An 'Indian Summer' means a period of unseasonably warm, dry and calm weather which can make for an Autumnal heatwave.
, highs of 27-29C have happened before in late September.
The mercury has soared to 30C on several occasions during the last week of the month, while the highest October temperature ever recorded in the UK was 29.4C in the small market town of March, Cambridgeshire, on the first day of the month in 1985.
An Indian Summer is usually followed by a period of colder weather or frost in the late Autumn.
Where did the phrase come from?
The term Indian summer reached England in the 19th century, during the heyday of the British Raj in India leading to the belief that the term referred to the Indian subcontinent.
However it's claimed the term was first coined by the Native Americans, and it was used there in the late 18th century.
The first use of the word was recorded in Letters from an American Farmer in 1778 by American soldier turned farmer J. H. St. John de Crèvecoeur.
"Then a severe frost succeeds which prepares it to receive the voluminous coat of snow which is soon to follow; though it is often preceded by a short interval of smoke and mildness, called the Indian Summer," he wrote.
The term then often appeared in American literature across the following century and, according to , in the 1830s, Indian Summer was used figuratively to refer to any late flowering following a period of decline.
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Is the UK due an Indian Summer?
Following Storms Ellen and Francis, which hit the UK with high winds and rain, the weather has been predicted to make a complete U-turn over the next few days.
A blast of weather from the Azores is set to bring temperatures in the mid-20s as a 600-mile "subtropical swell" of warmer air sweeps in from the Atlantic.
Bookies believe this September could be the hottest on record, a true Indian Summer.
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