I just read something interesting about when spring begins in the United States, and I didn't know that the exact date changes every year. In 2026, it was on Friday, March 20th at 10:46 a.m. (Eastern Time), the moment when the equinox occurred. The thing is, the equinox can fall between March 19th and 21st depending on the year and calendar adjustments.

What’s curious is what happens at that moment: the Sun crosses the Earth's equator, so day and night are practically the same length. During those hours, light is distributed more evenly between the two hemispheres. From that point on, when spring begins in the United States, daylight hours start to gradually increase until June.

This year, spring lasted about 92 days, from March 20th until around June 20th or 21st. What surprised me is that there’s a difference between astronomical spring (the spring of the equinox) and meteorological spring, which starts on March 1st according to the Gregorian calendar. Some people use Groundhog Day on February 2nd to predict when winter actually ends. Anyway, it’s interesting how something as simple as when spring begins in the United States has all this science behind it.