I know “others” think of this as the first day of spring….
I experience the equinox and solstice as mid- season markers.
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'Alf a mo; I thought that Vernal wasn’t until Tuesday. I’m going to have to recheck my calendar.
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Yes, although Daylight Saving Time in March has become so well-received by the masses (not), the government has implemented Springtime Saving Time and moved it up a few days.
April Fools Day has been similarly adjusted. ;-)
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Yes, spring equinox is tomorrow, Tuesday, 3/19
And fall equinox for those in the southern hemisphere. Leap Year Day caused it to be a day earlier than usual.
Edit: of course it’s the evening of 19 March for most of us in the Western Hemisphere but it really arrives on 20 March at 3:06 am UTC.
Happy Equinox, whenever and wherever it arrives!
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The Washington Post has an article that addresses this.
There are two reasons we have more than 12 hours of daylight on the equinox. One is how we define the term “sunrise” and “sunset” to measure the length of a day. The sun appears as a disk, not a discrete point in the sky like a nighttime star. Sunrise occurs the moment the sun’s upper edge appears on the horizon, while sunset doesn’t happen until the sun’s upper edge completely dips below it. If you’ve ever watched a sunset, you’ve probably noticed that it takes a few minutes for the sun to fully disappear from the sky
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