In this year of 2008, I thought it would be fun to be at hand and note the very moment that spring arrived. Wikipedia.com however, stated that the first day of spring would arrive on March 20th, 2008, at 5:58 a.m. I'm too late.
In thinking of spring's arrival date, my daughter, Jean Armour Polly, made a discovery. She found that the 5:58 arrival of the spring season, listed by Wikipedia.com, is stated in Universal Time. (see next article) Thus, for our local area, with Eastern Standard Time, spring's arrival came earlier, at 1:58 AM.
Now, with the sun high in the sky, I am too late to be a first greeter of spring for this year. Nonetheless, many of us, (outdoor creatures, too?), after weeks of snow and ice, are grateful when warmer days arrive, our gift from spring and the Creator of our seasons.
Marylee Manson Armour
Jean Armour Polly
March 21,2008
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UNIVERSAL TIME
What is "Universal Time, (abbreviated UT?) Universal Time is sometimes referred to, as "Greenwich Mean Time" (abbreviated GMT). Those two terms are often used loosely to refer to time kept on the Greenwich meridian (whose longitude is zero).
" Universal Time is five hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time," says the US Naval Observatory page. But to convert to Daylight Savings Time, according to TimeandDate.com.,
we have to subtract 4 hours.
Wikipedia reveals, "In reality, the day is longer than the night at an equinox." Some of us may say, "Just what is the definition of an equinox?"
Google guides us to a site that reports, "An equinox in astronomy is that moment in time (not a whole day) when the centre of the Sun can be observed to be directly above the Earth's equator. The equinox occurs around March 20 and September 23 each year."
Commonly a "day" is defined as the period that sunlight reaches the ground in the absence of a local obstacle.
Collected by
Jean Armour Polly
March 21, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
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