SPRING begins at 5:37am EDT
From the Farmer's Almanac:
The current seasonal lengths for the Northern Hemisphere are (approximately):
- Summer — 93.641 days
- Autumn — 89.834 days
- Winter — 88.994 days
- Spring — 92.771 days
[This is because of the Earth's elliptical orbit.]
As you can see, the warm seasons, spring and summer, combined are 7.584 days longer than the colder seasons, fall and winter (good news for warm weather admirers!).
However, spring is currently being reduced by approximately one minute per year and winter by about one-half a minute per year. Summer is gaining the minute lost from spring, and autumn is gaining the half a minute lost from winter.
Winter is the shortest astronomical season, and with its seasonal duration continuing to decrease, it is expected to attain its minimum value — 88.71 days — by about the year 3500.
