Fall began on Monday afternoon, or Sept. 22. The start of fall is also known as the autumnal equinox.
The word Equinox comes from the Latin term meaning "equal night," but did you know that the amount of daylight and nighttime is actually not equal on the equinox for Northeast Ohio?
That's right!
The actual date when there are nearly equal parts of day and night happens a few days after the autumnal equinox. This is known as the equilux (which is another Latin term meaning "equal light"!).
The specific date for the equilux is different for different latitudes.
For our latitude, this happened on Thursday, Sept. 25, with 12 hours and 30 seconds of daylight in Cleveland.
While the geometric center of the Sun is above the horizon for 12 hours on the first day of fall, sunrise is defined as when the edge of the Sun's disk becomes visible, not when the center of the Sun is visible.
The atmosphere also causes the light to bend ("refraction"), affecting when the Sun starts to be seen versus when it actually crosses the horizon.
The combination of these factors will cause the equal day-night (known as "equilux") to vary by latitude.
This is a lot of mumbo jumbo to say that after the equilux, nights will officially be longer than days...until next spring!
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