First day of spring 2023

Monday's equinox is at 5:24 p.m. Eastern, heralding spring's arrival in the Northern Hemisphere · What happens on the vernal equinox? · Equal day and night? Not ...

(The only place this doesn’t hold true is near the North and South poles, where the sun is either rising or setting for the first time in six months.) For the West Coast, Rockies and northern Plains, temperatures this spring may end up close to the long-term average. After the summer solstice, the sun’s position in the sky retreats south, and the days will get shorter again. In [Anchorage](https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/anchorage?month=3), the sun spends at least 5½ additional minutes above the horizon with each passing day. Near the equator, the sun is up for 12 hours 6 minutes, while Earth’s polar regions see about 12 hours 20 minutes of daylight. The date of the “equilux” — when sunrise and sunset are closest to 12 hours apart — occurs a few days before the equinox, on March 16 or 17 for most of the Lower 48 states. On the spring and autumnal equinoxes, however, both hemispheres receive [equal amounts](https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/earth-orbit-vernal-equinox) of the sun’s energy. This optical illusion allows us to see the sun at sunrise and sunset when it’s technically below the horizon. [tilted on its axis](https://www.weather.gov/images/cle/Education/EarthOrbit.png) by about 23.5 degrees, the Northern and Southern hemispheres receive different amounts of sunlight throughout the year. For areas north of about 37°N, today is the equilux. It’s the first day of astronomical spring in North America, Europe and Asia, while in the Southern Hemisphere, summer is transitioning to autumn. Eastern time, signals the end of winter and first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.