What's the difference between meteorological and astronomical spring?

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Tony Laubach breaks down the differences and explains why there are technically two different starts to the spring season.

Transcript

00:00 If you are sick of winter, you're in luck.

00:03 Today is the first day of meteorological spring.

00:06 And enjoying the first day of spring in Northern Colorado

00:09 is AccuWeather's own meteorologist, Tony Laubach.

00:12 He joins us now to tell us what makes this difference

00:16 from astrological spring to meteorological spring.

00:20 Tony?

00:21 (Tony laughs)

00:23 - Well, one's easier to say than the other.

00:25 That one is for certain.

00:26 And yes, we were talking about enjoying

00:27 the spring-like weather here in Northern Colorado.

00:30 Our AccuWeather real field temperature tickled 70 degrees.

00:34 How's that for a first day of meteorological spring?

00:37 But Tony, dear viewers, you are asking,

00:40 what is meteorological spring versus the spring that I know

00:43 that happens here in about three weeks from now?

00:46 Well, I'm gonna tell you, dear viewer,

00:47 exactly what the difference between the two of those are.

00:51 Meteorological spring, which starts on the first,

00:53 is a calendar-based starting of the spring

00:56 versus astronomical spring, which is the start of spring

01:00 when we get the equinox, when we have just about equal day

01:03 and equal night.

01:04 That changes year to year,

01:07 and not only does it change date to date,

01:09 but it changes time to time,

01:10 and that does make a difference for us weather nerds.

01:14 - Equinox always happens around the same time every year,

01:16 but the exact date and time changes from year to year.

01:20 And so that variability makes it a little different

01:22 to compare.

01:23 Meteorological seasons are set by the calendar,

01:25 so it makes it really easy for us meteorologists

01:28 to compare one season to the next.

01:30 - So if you think about this in a logical way here,

01:35 in terms of us keeping records,

01:36 we like to keep things within the season.

01:38 So we divide our meteorological seasons into three months.

01:42 Meteorological spring going from, go March, April, May,

01:45 then we go into summer, that goes three months,

01:47 and so forth and so on.

01:48 That allows us to keep better records seasonally

01:51 versus this year, for instance,

01:52 where an astronomical spring starts at 10.08 p.m.

01:57 on the 19th.

01:58 Now, that separates a day by two different seasons,

02:01 which makes it very, very difficult to keep records

02:04 in terms of consistency from year to year.

02:06 So that is why meteorological spring exists.

02:09 So folks like Melissa and I have a much easier time

02:12 instead of doing things the hard way,

02:13 and us meteorologists,

02:15 we like to do things the easy way when possible.

02:18 - Sounds pretty good to me.

02:19 We can also dive into solar spring too,

02:21 I suppose, at some point, Tony,

02:23 but we wanna thank you for that explanation

02:25 'cause it is true, we do need to keep those records going.

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