Spring Arrives Saturday Night: Watch Vernal Equinox Live

By BETH DALBEY (Patch Staff)

The first full day of spring is Sunday, March 20, but if you want to be precise about things — and when you’re talking about celestial events, you do want to be exact — the actual time of the Vernal Equinox is 12:30 a.m. Eastern Time on March 20.

If you missed all this in science class, the Vernal Equinox is the point when the Sun crosses the celestial equator on its way north along the ecliptic.

Still don’t know what that means? It means that days and nights are about equal around the world. Here’s something else you might not know:

Susannah Mushatt Jones is the oldest living person in the world at 116 years, and she's never seen a spring come this early.

The last time the March equinox came this early was in 1896, according to Earthsky.org. Celebrated supercentenarian Jones wasn’t even a glint in her parents’ eyes then. And spring comes even earlier than it did in 2012, another leap year, and that was the earliest since 1896 at the time. In four years, the equinox will occur even earlier. Are you noticing a pattern?

It’s because of the difference between tropical years, which have 365.242 days, and calendar years, which have 365 days in most years, except for leap years, when there are 366 days.

You may have missed that in science class, too. What you really need to know is that from now until the Summer Solstice — 6:34 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on June 20 — the sun will rise earlier and set later.

To celebrate spring, The Old Farmer’s Almanac in partnership with SLOOH astronomers, is offering a live broadcast of the Vernal Equinox from the Prescott Observatory in Arizona. And — bonus! — it will include a glimpse of the aurora borealis from northern latitudes.

» Photo by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center via Flickr (the Sun in this image was artificially created, though the GOES spacecraft does have sensors continually monitoring the Sun for solar activity)