Out West in Los Angeles and Vancouver, that means it arrives at 12:21 p.m.įor residents of Madrid, Berlin and Cairo, it comes precisely at 9:21 p.m. More on that farther down in the article.īut first, here are the answers to your other fall equinox questions:įor people in places such as Toronto and Washington, DC, that’s 3:21 p.m. ![]() There’s a good explanation (SCIENCE!) for why you don’t get precisely 12 hours of daylight on the equinox. Well, there’s just one rub - it isn’t as perfectly “equal” as you may have been told. They have long, dark winters and then have summers where night barely intrudes.īut during equinoxes, everyone from pole to pole gets to enjoy a 12-hour split of day and night. But people close to the poles, in destinations such as the northern parts of Canada, Norway and Russia, go through wild swings in the day/night ratio each year. For people south of the equator, this equinox actually signals the coming of spring.įolks really close to the equator have roughly 12-hour days and 12-hour nights all year long, so they won’t really notice a thing. If you reside in the Northern Hemisphere, you know it as the fall equinox (or autumnal equinox). On Wednesday, September 22, we enter our second and final equinox of 2021. ![]() By 21 December, the sun will have reached its lowest point in the sky during the day, marking the December solstice - at which point, daylight hours will begin to increase once again.Twice a year, everyone on Earth is seemingly on equal footing - at least when it comes to the distribution of light and dark. Over the next 12 weeks as we approach December, the Northern Hemisphere of Earth will tilt further away from the sun. Whereas, autumn beginning on the day of the equinox is based on astronomy, taking into consideration Earth's orbit and proximity to the Sun. ![]() The main reason behind this is that it makes it simpler to compare seasonal and monthly statistics. You may be asking, hasn't autumn already started? For meteorologists, they use 1 September as marking the first day of autumn. Because of these two factors, the date when day and night are exactly equal is called the equilux, which occurs a few days after the autumn equinox. Additionally, light is refracted (able to bend) which means it begins to appear light before the sun has risen, as well as a few extra minutes of light after the sun has set. Therefore, although it appears the sun has risen, the centre is still below the horizon. This is because the equinox is measured with respect to the Sun's centre, not the edge of the sun. Strictly speaking, there is not exactly 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness on the equinox, with the amount varying by a few minutes. However, if you really like detail, in the last paragraph, it states the equinox marks when day and night are "roughly equal". Normally, the autumn equinox falls between 22 and 24 September, and this year, the equinox will occur on 23 September 2023. ![]() The equinox is also one of only two days a year when the sun rises due east and sets due west. But, on the day of an equinox, the tilt of Earth's axis is perpendicular to the Sun's rays, producing a nearly equal amount of day and night all over the world. As the Earth travels on its year-long path around the sun it is tilted towards or away from the sun, which this gives us our seasons. The Earth's axis is titled at an average of 23.5°. On these days, everywhere on Earth experiences roughly 12 hours of sunshine and 12 hours of darkness. The word "equinox" is derived from Latin and literally translates to "equal night". The autumn equinox falls on 22 September this year and marks the day when day and night are equal length. As you have very likely noticed, the sun is setting earlier and the nights are getting longer.
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