If you thought the first full day of spring was March 21, you might be surprised to know that there are at least three different classifications of the spring season, one of which begins this Saturday.
March 1 marks the first day of meteorological, or climatological, spring for the Northern Hemisphere.
Unlike astronomical seasons, which are determined by the Earth's position in relation to the sun, meteorological seasons are categorized by temperature.
Meteorological winter is the coldest quarter of the year (December-February), while meteorological summer is the warmest (June-August). The quarter between these periods is meteorological spring, with occurs from March through May.
The vernal equinox occurs later in the month on March 20th. This event, when the Earth's tilt on its axis is neither toward nor away from the sun, marks the start of astronomical spring.
Additionally, there are solar seasons, which are categorized by the length of daylight hours. Solar winter is November-January, the months with the shortest daylight hours. Because of this, solar spring began in February.
Got that? Solar Spring has already started....Meteorological Spring starts Saturday and Astronomical Spring starts March 20th....
Now that we've gotten that out of the way - wind chills tonight will be well below zero and later his weekend we are looking at 8+ inches of snow.
Happy "Whatever" Spring!
No comments:
Post a Comment