Friday, March 20, 1998

Spring arrives, maybe

Spring officially begins at 1:55 p.m. today, the Vernal Equinox when day and night are each 12 hours long.

Actually, not 12 hours long. Because of the refraction of the Earth's atmosphere, the equinox day is about seven minutes longer than the night.

Actually, not the real start of spring, not for most people. For the National Weather Service, spring began March 1. As of today, spring is 20 percent gone for the weather service.

In many parts of the country, the residents date the start of spring from the first daffodils, which thanks to El Nino, a once obscure ocean current now a fixture in everyone's weather vocabulary, often bloomed very early indeed this year.

For others, spring depends on the athletic, not the solar, calendar, with the start being tied to March Madness, the college basketball playoffs that offer a choice of dates from the first round on March 12 to the championship on March 30, or baseball's opening day, this year an early-bird March 31.

For those belt and suspenders types who want to be doubly certain, the official first day of spring is April 5, at 2 a.m. to be precise, when clocks are sprung forward one hour to start Daylight Savings Time.

By whatever measure, one day it will be spring and about time, too.