This Saturday is the Spring Equinox. The equinox means equal day and night – so after Saturday the days will continue to get longer and the nights shorter.

In fact at this time of the year each week gets around 20 minutes extra sunlight per week. So we’ll gain an extra hour of sunlight this month – and basically another next month, especially for those further south where the days get longer, faster. 

The equinox isn’t actually a day, it’s a precise moment and it occurs at 8:02am this Saturday in New Zealand. Not that you will notice anything at the time.

This has nothing to do with Daylight Saving, which co-incidentally, is also this weekend. This means the clocks spring forward one hour and we lose one hour of sleep on Sunday. Put another way – this weekend is 47 hours long.

In a poll WeatherWatch.co.nz ran earlier this month the upcoming Spring Equinox will mean 30% of New Zealanders ‘officially’ end Winter 2017 and celebrate the very beginning of Spring.

– Image / “The Sun setting behind Mt Campbell about 10km inland from Motueka township. Used special sun filter to take photo”. Uploaded to the WeatherWatch.co.nz PHOTO GALLERY by Grant Heney, back in August.

– WeatherWatch.co.nz