MARYLAND — Astronomical spring is only a few days away! This is denoted by the vernal (spring) equinox, where the Sun is shining directly over the equator. This phenomenon means that one side of the Earth is fully illuminated in an equal manner.
During this time the tilt of the Earth is not facing towards or away from the Sun, meaning that both the northern and southern hemispheres receive equal amounts of light.
While we also get close to a near-perfect split of daylight and darkness, it does get close just a few days before the equinox.
In Baltimore, we see our closest day of 12 hours of sunlight and darkness on St. Patrick's day as our daylight length is 12 hours and 14 seconds. On the east coast, the city that gets the closest is New York City with the daylight length being 11 hours 59 minutes, and 58 seconds.
The actual equinox in Baltimore sees a total daylight length of 12 hours and 7 minutes.
So, while we do not have a perfect split one good thing is that days are getting longer as we approach our warmer season.
