What is Maycomb's weather like in To Kill a Mockingbird?

The weather in Harper Lee’s fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama is typical for that of the Deep South. It is very hot in the summer with brief but cold winters. Early in chapter 8, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch mentions the harshness of the current winter, quoting her father Atticus as observing, “We had two weeks of the coldest weather since 1885.” Despite this unusual cold snap and the snow that accompanied it, Maycomb winters are...

The weather in Harper Lee’s fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama is typical for that of the Deep South. It is very hot in the summer with brief but cold winters. Early in chapter 8, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch mentions the harshness of the current winter, quoting her father Atticus as observing, “We had two weeks of the coldest weather since 1885.” Despite this unusual cold snap and the snow that accompanied it, Maycomb winters are depicted as generally mild, prompting Scout to note that shoes are rarely needed in Maycomb, even during winter.

Alabama, of course, is on the Gulf of Mexico, and the local geography is generally humid with frequent rains. Again, typical of the Gulf Coast, summer temperatures tend to be quite hot, reaching 90 degrees at times, which happened to be the daytime temperature during the rape trial of Tom Robinson (“Reverend Sykes wiped his face on his hat. The temperature was an easy ninety”). Summer plays a prominent role in To Kill a Mockingbird. It is during the summer that Dill comes to Maycomb, and the three children play together and conspire to draw out the mysterious figure of Boo Radley.

Harper Lee was born and spent much of her life in Monroeville, Alabama, which served as the model for Maycomb. She knew the area well, and Scout’s descriptions of growing up in Alabama no doubt accurately reflected the author’s experiences and observations.