Dog Day Afternoon

If we were in the northern hemisphere we would be calling these dog days, when Sirius the dog star rises at dawn in conjunction with summer. According to legend, the Romans sacrificed a brown dog at the beginning of the Dog Days to appease the rage of Sirius, believing that the star was the cause of the hot, sultry weather - evil times "when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, Quinto raged in anger, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies" according to Brady’s Clavis Calendarium, 1813.
So it seemed fitting that this would be a dog day afternoon, doing the surf check as another thunder storm rolled down from the mountains.