Spring Solstice Arrives in Amarillo on Wednesday March 20th
The first day of Spring is right on our doorstep and it looks to be a normal start to the season. Spring arrives on the Texas panhandle Wednesday, March 20th at 4:58 pm and so far the forecast is looking right on target for what we would expect.
High temperatures are forecasted to be right at the average for the day, if not a couple degrees cooler, and the winds should be on the calmer side.
Now we all know that in the Amarillo area, Spring brings in the severe weather season and March has already proven to be one for the record books. A huge storm system brought the panhandle winds upwards of 84mph and we have already seen our first round of thunderstorms.
If you haven't already begun, this is the time to get weather-ready as our severe weather season doesn't really get going until April and lasts for several months.
Want to know the science behind the season change? Almanac.com has the full explanation:
The word equinox comes from the Latin words for “equal night”—aequus (equal) and nox (night). On the equinox, the length of day and night is nearly equal in all parts of the world. With the equinox, enjoy the increasing sunlight hours, with earlier dawns and later sunsets. On the March Equinox, the Sun crosses the celestial equator from south to north. It’s called the “celestial equator” because it’s an imaginary line in the sky above the Earth’s equator. If you were standing on the equator, the Sun would pass directly overhead on its way north. Equinoxes are the only two times a year that Sun only rises due east and sets due west for all of us on Earth! While the Sun passes overhead, the tilt of the Earth is zero relative to the Sun, which means that Earth’s axis neither points toward nor away from the Sun. (Note, however, that the Earth never orbits upright, but is always tilted on its axis by about 23.5 degrees.) After the Spring equinox, the Norther Hemisphere tilts toward the Sun, which is why we start to get longer, sunnier days