I love writing about the seasons and especially the way in which we mark them. If you’re a regular reader of mine, you know I get excited about solar spring, which takes place in early February. This is followed by the start of meteorological spring on March 1 and now we finally have astronomical spring, starting with the spring equinox early Thursday.

Spring is already underway all around us, with crocus, snowdrops, witch hazel, hellebore and even early iris in bloom. Birds are nesting and the grass is looking greener.

Last year, on March 19 at 11:06 p.m., the spring equinox – also known as the vernal equinox – experienced its earliest arrival in over a century (128 years, to be exact)! This year, the spring equinox occurs a little bit later at 5:01 a.m. on Thursday in the Northern Hemisphere.

This marks the moment when the sun’s rays are directly overhead at the equator. Neither hemisphere is tilted more toward or away from the sun. This leads to a relatively equal day and night. We don’t have exactly 12 hours between sunrise and sunset because of the refraction through our atmosphere and because when you see the sun rising and setting, it’s not actually there but rather it’s an illusion because of the bending of the light.

By the time we get to the equinox, our sunrise Thursday will occur at 6:46 a.m. and sunset at 6:56 p.m., leaving us 12 hours, 9 minutes and 47 seconds between the two. As you can see, it’s a little bit longer than 12 hours. The same occurs during the autumnal equinox in September. Solstices, on the other hand, are when the Earth tilts at its most extreme angle either toward or away from the sun.

The arrival of the spring equinox also means everyone will be able to enjoy longer periods of daylight in the next weeks and months. Days will get longer until June 24 when the sun falls below the horizon at 8:25 p.m.

Here’s another interesting tidbit about spring and summer. Those seasons are actually longer than the colder ones of fall and winter.

Although winter may feel long to some of you, it’s just under 89 days whereas spring and summer are just over 92 and 93 days, respectively. The reason for this is that during the winter, the Earth is closest to the sun, whereas in the summer we are farther. Because we’re closer, we’re actually moving faster in our orbit during the colder season in the Northern Hemisphere. This leads to a slower orbit during the warmer months with just under eight more days combined for spring and summer compared to fall and winter.

Here in Southern New England, spring certainly does not mean consistent warm weather. As a matter of fact, we can have a cold, damp day well into May because of the cold Atlantic. The ocean takes a while to warm up. Anytime we have the wind traversing the water, we end up with a cooling sea breeze. Eventually, the sea breeze no longer has the same chilling effect and is basically a welcome relief later in the summer.

Like all of the seasons, spring is getting warmer. We are seeing fewer days with snow, earlier final dates of frost and certainly heat that arrives faster than it did in the middle of the 20th century.

But every spring is a little bit different, some can be quite wet, others can be very dry. Certain springs seem to have more chill than others, but they all bring a renewed sense of wonder as the landscape turns green and floriferous. It can still snow, we can still see ice on a puddle, but spring is here and it’s time to embrace our warm seasons.