APHELION!

July 3 marks APHELION, the point in Earth's yearly elliptical orbit when our planet is the farthest from the sun.  If you are in the northern hemisphere it may not feel like you are at the farthest distance from the very hot sun!  Which helps make the point that our distance from the sun, and it varies by almost 3 million miles, has little or nothing to do with the seasons.  Changes in the earth/sun distance may well factor into advances and recessions of vast ice sheets but as a yearly weather influence the distance is minimal; it's the TILT that causes the seasons on Earth (as it does on Mars).
Earth's tilt, slowly shifting between 22 and 24 degrees (another possible factor in the comings and goings of ice sheets) with respect to the plane of our orbit around the sun, is the reason it's cooking hot on July 3rd in central Va.  Our current tilt of 23 1/2 (actually 23.45) degrees and the fact the Earth's north end was tipped as far toward the sun as it gets about 2 weeks ago is the cause of the heat; more direct sun for  a longer period of daylight.  That direct sunlight has less atmosphere to shine through and the northern end's tilt allows morning and evening light to shine over the top of the planet and keep the the days longer.  The southern hemisphere, currently tipped away from the sun, has low angled light for shorter stretches with the earth blocking the morning and evening light.
So does that mean it gets colder in the southern hemisphere because they are tipped away AND farther from the sun (and hotter in the southern summer when the tilt and closer distance combine for a potential opposite effect)?  Hard to tell for certain, there's a lot more water down south than up north and water moderates temperatures, whether hot or cold.  And, the land mass at our southern end, Antarctica, has so much ice piled on it, which adds altitude making things colder still, that it's hard to say with scientific certainty.  The coldest temps on earth have been recorded in Antarctica during the perennial dark of their winter.
With Hurricane Arthur, earth's natural heat dispersal device, bearing down on the Carolina coasts, being far from the sun is probably not on a lot of folks' mind.  But, here we are, as far from our star as we'll get this year but dealing with it's heat nonetheless.  Enjoy your Aphelion, because it is only...today on Earth.