(WKBW-TV) BUFFALO, NY — Sunday marks the first full day of fall with the arrival of the Autumnal Equinox, here is why it's significant and how it works.
At 2:50 a.m. on Saturday, September 23, the northern hemisphere will welcome its first day of autumn. This is the precise moment when the Autumnal Equinox takes place. During the equinox, the sun will cross the equator going from north to south. After the equinox, the days become shorter than the nights as the sun continues to rise later and nightfall arrives earlier. This ends with the Winter Solstice, after which the days start to grow longer once again.
Why do we call it an equinox? The word stems from two Latin words: aequuus, meaning “equal”, and nox, meaning “night."
On the equinox, with the sun shining directly over the equator, day and night in the northern hemisphere are roughly equal in length! And…outside of one other date, the date of the Spring Equinox, it’s one of two moments of the year that the sun rises directly in the east and sets directly in the west!
And yes you can balance an egg on the equinox, but you can also balance an egg on ANY day if you try hard enough. It has nothing to do with the equinox!
Those are the basics behind the autumnal equinox and why it marks the beginning of fall!
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