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What You May Not Know About Spring

Harry McNabb
From: Wikimedia Commons

One nice thing about working with drones is that the focus is mostly skyward.   Taking a cue from that,  today marks the change in season from winter to spring.   It occurs on what is called the Vernal Equinox where there is roughly equal segments of light and darkness.  This occurs when the sun is directly over the Earth’s equator.  Spring equinox which is what that is occurring in our part of the world at 5:58 pm today notes when the Northern Hemisphere of the planet is slowly moving toward the Sun which leads to longer periods of sunlight during the upcoming days.  (Yea!)

The spring equinox, which is what we are noting today,  marks one of the two times a year when day and night are about the same length. The word equinox comes from the Latin word equinoxium, which means “equality between day and night.”

The 250 year old Encyclopedia Britannia explains.
“Vernal equinox, two moments in the year when the Sun is exactly above the Equator and day and night are of equal length; also, either of the two points in the sky where the ecliptic (the Sun’s annual pathway) and the celestial equator intersect. In the Northern Hemisphere the vernal equinox falls about March 20 or 21, as the Sun crosses the celestial equator going north. In the Southern Hemisphere the equinox occurs on September 22 or 23, when the Sun moves south across the celestial equator. According to the astronomical definition of the seasons, the vernal equinox also marks the beginning of spring, which lasts until the summer solstice (June 20 or 21 in the Northern Hemisphere, December 21 or 22 in the Southern Hemisphere).”

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