Dang, Almost Missed Start of Spring :o)

Messed up this entry and it was stored as "draft" to publish Saturday at 11:59 :o)

For some reason, I thought that the equinox was always on the 21st.  Always interesting to learn something new.   The March equinox occured on March 20 this year, marking the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere and fall (autumn) in the southern hemisphere from an astronomical viewpoint. The March equinox occured at 17:32 (or 5:32pm) at Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

This illustration, which shows an example only of the March equinox, is not to scale.Twice a year, around March 20 or 21 and September 22 or 23, the sun shines directly on the equator and the length of day and night are nearly equal in all parts of the world. These two days are known as the March (vernal or spring in the northern hemisphere) equinox and the September equinox.

Happy Spring :o)

In the Northern Hemisphere spring officially begins at 7:44 a.m. ET on Friday, March 20, 2009—the vernal equinox, or spring equinox.

But don't be fooled by the old rumor that on the vernal equinox the length of day is exactly equal to the length of night.


The true days of day-night equality always fall before the vernal equinox and after the autumnal, or fall, equinox, according to Geoff Chester, a public affairs specialist with the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. "Exactly when it happens depends on where you are located on the surface of the Earth," he said. By the time the center of the sun passes over the Equator—the official definition of equinox—the day will be slightly longer than the night everywhere on Earth. The difference is a matter of geometry, atmosphere, and language.

To see a video on the Vernal Equinox, click here.

Today, while the weather does not quite feel like spring, it is a darn sight better than the freezing temperatures of winter. The next four or five days are expected to be in the fifties and low sixties.

Not much going on, while we do have a few errands to run, mostly just trying to relax. In the next several days I will be posting about our upcoming refueling outage, which will make me scarce for the next five or six weeks (6-12.5 hour days per week, plus hour commute each way makes for a tired man, and this all starts at 3:00 A.M. Monday :o(