Note that each year the occurrence of the equinox happens about 6 hours (or one-quarter of a day) later in the calendar: Let's look at the dates and times of the vernal equinoxes leading up to 2000. Rather, it is the leap year that we observed in the year 2000. (Image credit: NOAA) When a leap year set us back a dayįirst, that 2020 is a leap year (meaning that the month of February had one extra day) is not the reason for the early arrival of this year's equinox. NOAA's GOES-13 satellite captured this image of the Earth at the spring equinox on March 20, 2013. There are two specific reasons for this variation of the date: leap years and daylight saving time. Why so early?Īs was noted, this will be the earliest that the vernal equinox will occur across the contiguous United States in 124 years. In the days that follow, the direct rays of the sun migrate to the north of the equator and the length of daylight in the Northern Hemisphere will correspondingly appear to increase. At that moment, the sun will appear directly overhead about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Gorontalo, a province of Indonesia - often referred to as the "Emerald of the Equator" - on the island of Sulawesi, on the equator in the Gulf of Tomini. This year it will occur on Thursday (March 19) at 11:49:28 p.m. Sun overhead from the Emerald of the EquatorĪstronomers can calculate the moment of the vernal equinox right down to the nearest second. At the latitude of New York, for instance, day and night are roughly equal a few days before the equinox, on St. The supposed equality of day and night gives us the Latin name "equinox," which means "equal night." But in reality, thanks to our atmosphere, the day is longer than the night at the equinox.
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