YORK, Pa. — This happens four times a year: the FOX43 Weather Team mentions the start of a "meteorological" season, as opposed to an astronomical changing of the seasons.
Ironically enough, the astronomical reason is more scientific than the meteorological one.
Meteorologists strictly say September 1st is the start of "Meteorological Fall" for record-keeping. It's easier to keep track of data month-to-month rather than a range of days.
Astronomical Autumn can take place between September 21-24. That range makes it a bit more difficult to keep track of the data as opposed to every first day of Meteorological Fall starting on September 1.
The first day of March, June, September and December mark the start of meteorological spring, summer, fall and winter.
Astronomical seasons are based on the Earth's position, or tilt, around the sun. Those seasons begin in the mid-to-late portions of March, June, September and December.
March and September changing of astronomical seasons are called equinoxes (March = Vernal Equinox, September = Autumnal Equinox). June and December are called solstices (summer and winter).
The difference between those is that equinox implies equal day and night. The Sun is directly above the Equator. A solstice means that the sun is directly above either the Tropic of Capricorn (winter) or Tropic of Cancer (summer). Those mark the points where the sun is furthest away from the Equator.
The summer solstice gives us the most amount of daylight, as the sun is positioned to the tropic line closest to us. The opposite is said for the winter.
One other fun fact of this season's change is the variation of the words fall and autumn.
According to Merriam-Webster, both 'autumn' and 'fall' originated from Britain. Autumn was first, however, originating from the Latin word 'autumnus.' It would take 300 years for 'fall' to exist, according to USA Today.
This, mostly due to poets using the phrase "the fall of the leaves." From Britain, the word made its way to America, and we did what we Americans do best: we changed it to make it simpler, as with plenty of other words back in that time. So while autumn certainly is the preferred linguistic choice in the U.K., you say it here to be pretentious.
Instead, you'll see pillows upon pillows adorned with, "It's Fall Y'all!" (Sometimes correctly spelling y'all... sometimes not, spelling it ya'll...) I digress.
Happy Autumn! Or Fall! Bottom line, enjoy the beautiful color changes that are on the way and the cooler temperatures!
Until next time,
-Chief Meteorologist Bradon Long
