Welcome to Spring! Officially that is. It's certainly been feeling very spring, even summer like the last couple of weeks... but Friday morning officially ushers in the Vernal Equinox. If your setting an alarm... the equinox arrives at 7:46 AM here on the west coast.
We can thank the earth's tilt on it's axis for giving us the four seasons that we experience. If you weren't aware the earth is tilted at 23.5 degrees. The spring equinox lands each year between March 19 and the 21st... this year it's March 20th at 7:46 am. Let's break down Equinox... in Latin Equi rouhly means equal and Nox means night.
On the equinox there are generally equal amounts of daylight and darkness around the planet. This is also the moment when Earth's rotation axis is directly perpendicular to the Sun-Earth line, tilting neither toward nor away from the Sun.
In the northern hemisphere the earth's 23.5 degree tilt points us towards the sun in the summer and away from the sun in the winter. This trip around the sun gives us the four seasons... in the form of the Winter Solstice, the Vernal Equinox, the Summer Solstice, and the Autumnal Equinox.Â
Coincidentally, in the southern hemisphere this marks the start of fall. And as our days get longer as we head towards the dog days of summer, the daylight hours in the southern hemisphere are getting shorter as they move towards winter.
You may have also heard meteorologists refer to the meteorological seasons which break the year down into the annual temperature cycles. Winter equaling December, January, and February... Spring being March, April, and May... Summer arriving June, July, and August... taking us into fall with September, October, and November.
