What is the Spring Equinox

The spring equinox recently took place on Sunday, March 20th. This means that the sun crosses the equator line moving north, making the Northern Hemisphere tilt a little closer to the sun. This change in the Earth’s tilt leads to more daylight and warmer temperatures, officially marking the start of spring. For people in the Southern Hemisphere, what is the start of spring for us, is the start to fall for them.

Starting the 20th, the length of daylight will increase each day until we reach the summer solstice, which is exactly what it sounds like it is. The summer solstice is the first day of summer and the day with the longest amount of daylight.

A lot of people think the start of spring is March 1st, and technically they are not wrong. There are two ways we are able to tell the start to new seasons. Astronomically speaking, the first day of spring is marked by the spring equinox. However Meteorologically speaking, the official first day of spring is March 1. This is because weather scientists divide the year into quarters to make it easier to compare seasonal and monthly statistics from one year to the next.