Astronomical spring arrives today just before 1PM at 12:57, if you are being precise. The reason I write astronomical spring is because meteorological spring began 3 weeks ago. Meteorologists and astronomers see the seasons differently. For those of us in the weather business, spring is the 90 days between the coldest and warmest 90 days of the year. Autumn therefore becomes the 90 days of transition between the hottest and coldest 90 day periods heading in the other direction.
This might seems like semantics, but when you purely focus on temperature the seasons are all shifted back about three weeks. It’s actually quite logical because the first three weeks of March are likely warmer than the first three weeks of December.
At any rate, spring has arrived on both fronts and while we haven’t seen much prolonged spring weather this will change.
On this first day of spring the chances of a big snow storm are rapidly decreasing. While we have seen major storms into mid-April and even early May, the odds of a 6 inch snow storm are shrinking day by day. April 1st 1997 and April 5th and 6th 1982 both brought major storms to Maine and much of New England. In a cold winter such as the one we have had, it’s not out of the realm of possibility there is still some more snow on the way.
Sunlight is another interesting part of spring. Today, the earth is oriented in such a way to the sun so all parts of the planet see equal amounts of daylight. Basically, everyone has the sunrise at 6:30 in the morning and sunset at 6:30 in the evening. Individual time zones can shift those numbers an hour or so in one direction, but if you traveled anywhere in the world today, the gap between sunrise and sunset would be equal. This is why we call this the “vernal equinox”. The same thing happens again in 6 months when we observe the autumnal equinox.
Average highs are now in the 40s. Wild fluctuations are common this time of year with one day being in the 60s and other only in the 30s. Averages are just made up of extremes and there is almost no other period more extreme than the end of March and early April.
Light continues to increase, but it will be slowing down by a second or two from this point forward until we reach mid-June.
I’ll be updating the forecast on Twitter @growingwisdom. Follow @growingwisdom
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