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Vernal Equinox trivia
Posted on March 18th, 2007 by bobmoler
Spring will begin at 8:07 p.m. EDT Tuesday March 20th. If you’re as old as me you probably were taught that spring started on March 21st.
- In the eastern time zone spring hasn’t started on the 21st since 1979.
- This is the last year spring will start on the 21st according to Grennich Mean or Universal time until the year 2103.
- If congress doesn’t play with daylight time again, spring will start on the 19th in 2020.
- The fix for all this will occur in the year 2100 which will not be a leap year according to the Gregorian Calendar formula.
- Even though the word equinox means “equal night” daylight will be a few minutes longer on the 20th. See my explanation here.
- Eggs don’t stand up any easier on the equinox. Check out this from Bad Astronomy.
[...] forward to every year. This is the night that Spring begins. It is the Vernal Equinox. At exactly 8:07PM… time check… yesterday, tulip shoots and leaf buds magically appeared and we are now on [...]
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