NORTHERN HEMISPHERE — Autumn arrives and, as if on cue, rain clears the air around us. Buckeye withers and leaves drop to the ground, temperatures cool and skies darken earlier. Sweater weather approaches, and we rejoice.
Happy fall, y’all!
The autumnal equinox, when days and nights are approximately equal in length, arrives this year on Friday, Sept. 22 at precisely 1:02 p.m. PDT. For those south of the equator, it’s about to be spring.
The equinox occurs twice a year, in spring and fall, when the tilt of the Earth’s axis and our orbit around the sun combine in a way that the axis is tipped neither toward nor away from the sun.
Around the time of the equinox, both hemispheres of the Earth are receiving the sun’s rays about equally, while night and day are approximately the same length. The word equinox is derived from the Latin aequus (equal) and nox (night), and many have long considered the time to be a period for gathering the abundance of harvest and also attaining balance in the world.
