Susannah Mushatt Jones is the oldest living person in the world at 116 years, and she’s never seen a spring come this early.
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Those eggs? It is a charming bit of folklore that eggs will stand on end only on an equinox.
One of the remarkable things that the first astronomers observed was the position of the sun among the stars. This is when day and night approximately 12 hours are long worldwide, with the sun rising due east and setting due west. From the start of spring, the sun continues to make its trek farther north, from shining directly over the equator to the Tropic of Cancer when astronomical summer starts. This means if you traveled to the equator where it was noon as spring began and looked up the sun would be exactly in the center of the sky. Yet while people often refer to the equinox as the first “official” day of spring, there is no universally agreed upon definition for the seasons.
During the coming months the sun will take a higher and higher path through the sky, and the days will get longer and longer, until the sun reaches its highest point in the sky on the summer solstice on June 20.
It always occurs a few days before the spring equinox and a few days after the autumn equinox. In fact, the equinox occurs at exactly the same time on the celestial calendar measured against the starry background.
However, there are also a few more unorthodox celebrations – some of which date back thousands of years.
The other is how we define sunrise and sunset.
Astronomically speaking, the vernal equinox is when the sun’s rays light on the Earth’s equator, the website Weather says.
This year, the vernal equinox will occur at different times across the country, depending on the location.
The exact moment in which spring begins happens at 12:30 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday, March 20.
The year 2096 will have the earliest March equinox of the century, occurring at 10:03 p.m. EDT on March 19, according to EarthSky. Leap years allow us to keep the seasons balanced.
Since 2100 isn’t a leap year, the equinox will eventually drift later again – though March 20 is the most common date of the equinox for a while. The earliest equinox of the 21st century will be in 2096, arriving midday on March 19.
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Most of the USA will ring in Spring on Saturday night.
