While aligned to highlight the summer and winter solstices, Stonehenge garners attention this time of year, too. Stonehenge (United Kingdom): Many mysteries about these giant slabs remain, but we do know they were designed to mark the yearly passage of the sun.
Here are just a few of the sites associated with the equinox and the annual passage of the sun: Long before the age of clocks, satellites and modern technology, our ancient ancestors knew a lot about the movement of the sun across the sky - enough to build massive monuments and temples that, among other purposes, served as giant calendars to mark the seasons. What did our ancestors know about all this? (That’s why it stays light for so long each day during the summer in places such as Scandinavia and Alaska.)īut since the summer solstice three months ago in June, you’ve noticed that our days have been progressively becoming shorter in the Northern Hemisphere and the nights longer. Those are the solstices, and they have the most extreme differences between day and night, especially near the poles. The effect is at its maximum in late June and late December.
This discrepancy in sunlight is what triggers the seasons. That positions one hemisphere of the planet to get more sunlight than the other for half of the year’s orbit around the sun. However, the axis tilts at 23.5 degrees, as NASA explains. It’s called the axis, and this rotation is what gives us day and night. The Earth rotates along an imaginary line that runs from North Pole to South Pole. Why does fall equinox happen in the first place?
She said that “meteorologists and climatologists prefer to use the ‘meteorological calendar’ because not only do the dates not change - making it easy to remember - but also because it falls in line more with what people think traditional seasons are.” “For example, December 10, most people would consider winter, but if you are using the astronomical calendar, technically that is still considered autumn because it is before the winter solstice.” “This makes some dates tricky,” Chinchar says. Meteorological seasons are defined as the following: March 1 to May 31 is spring June 1 to August 31 is summer September 1 to November 30 is autumn and December 1 to February 28 is winter. These are perhaps the seasons that more people are familiar with,” Chinchar says. “Meteorological fall is different … in that the dates never change and are based on climatological seasons rather than Earth’s angle relative to the sun. Those dates can vary by a day or two each year,” she says. “Astronomical fall is essentially the time period from the autumnal equinox up to the winter solstice. Fall officially begins on the autumn equinox.īut there are actually two measures of the seasons: “the astronomical seasons” (which follow the arrivals of equinoxes and solstices) and what’s called the “meteorological seasons.”Īllison Chinchar, CNN meteorologist, explains the differences: Is the autumn equinox the official first day of fall? You can click here to see more cities (rounded down by one minute and adjusted for Daylight Saving Time). Going farther east, Dubai marks the exact event at 5:03 a.m.įor residents of Bangkok, it’s 8:03 a.m. For residents of Madrid, Berlin and Cairo, it comes at 3:03 a.m. Out West in San Diego and Vancouver, that means it arrives at 6:03 p.m.īut go in the other direction across the Atlantic Ocean, and the time change puts you into Friday. It comes at 8:03 p.m in Mexico City and Chicago. However, it will be 1:04 UTC according to the Royal Museums Greenwich and the US National Weather Service.įor people in places such as Toronto and Washington, DC, that’s 9:03 p.m. The equinox will arrive at 1:03 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) Friday, September 23, according to NASA and.
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