Spring 2024 has sprung! Officially beginning at 11:06 pm tonight, the spring equinox marks the arrival of  spring, giving the opportunity to say farewell to the 2023-2024 Winter.

The timing of the four seasons is determined by shifting sunlight, which on its own is determined by how our planet orbits the Sun and the tilt of its axis. Half-way between winter and summer, spring will see days getting longer and temperatures getting warmer throughout the northern hemisphere (while the days will be getting colder in the southern hemisphere.)

To simplify things, meteorologists use dates other than the equinox to determine the start/end dates of weather seasons. Meteorologists and climatologists break the seasons down into groupings of three months based on the annual temperature cycle. In the world of meteorology and climatology, autumn includes September, October, and November; winter includes December, January, and February; spring includes March, April, and May; summer includes June, July and August. Because the seasons are based on months and not traditional astronomical ones, the length of the meteorological seasons is more consistent, averaging about 91 days per season. By following the civil calendar, meteorologists and especially climatologists can better calculate seasonal statistics from monthly ones.