Meteorological Spring Starts This Week: Here's What That Means

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After recent winter storms and much-colder-than-average temperatures impacting parts of the West this February, spring can't come soon enough for many.

It turns out, spring starts this week, at least according to meteorologists.

The arrival of spring you've probably heard about before is known as the vernal equinox. That's the moment in time when the sun's most direct rays are shining on the equator.

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In 2023, the vernal equinox will occur on Monday, March 20, at 5:24 p.m. ET.

Its counterpart in fall, the autumnal equinox, and also the summer and winter solstices, occur in late September, June and December, respectively, due to the tilt of the Earth's axis as it revolves around the sun.

This changing sun angle through the year is why we have so-called astronomical seasons.

However, meteorologists stray from those seemingly concrete definitions because of temperatures.

When you examine average daily high and low temperatures throughout the year, you'll quickly notice a pattern.

The coldest three months of the year in the Northern Hemisphere are usually from the beginning of December through the end of February, while the warmest three months are typically from the beginning of June through the end of August.

These nice, clean, three-month buckets are known as meteorological winter and summer, respectively.

Alaska-based climatologist Brian Brettschneider calculated that the Dec. 1-Feb. 28 meteorological winter is a better fit for the coldest time of year in most of the United States and Canada.

In an analysis of dozens of U.S. cities, Brettschneider found only Honolulu, Hawaii, had its coldest 90-day stretch extend deep into March.

For those that live in the northern U.S., this makes sense.

It seems a little silly when we say "winter is here" just days before Christmas, when many parts of the north have already had at least one significant snowfall or cold snap.

Meteorological spring – March 1 through May 31 – is the transition between the three coldest and three warmest months of the year.

Another advantage to meteorological seasons is the ease of calculating seasonal statistics, since every meteorological season starts on the first of the month.

A March Of Increasing Daylight, Temperatures

Most of the U.S. will pick up a full hour of evening daylight when daylight saving time arrives on March 12.

Even if there wasn't daylight saving time, most areas in the northern U.S. would gain an extra 30 to 45 minutes of sunlight in the evening by the end of March. More southern locales would typically only pick up 15 to 30 minutes of additional evening daylight during the month if our clocks didn't spring forward.

While March has a well-earned stormy reputation, including winter storms in the West and northern U.S., with the sun gradually shining higher in the sky, average high temperatures typically rise about 10 degrees in the Midwest, Northeast and Plains by month's end.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.