Say what you will, the equinox doesn’t care that your local coffee shop started selling pumpkin spice lattes two weeks ago. Fall begins when the sun says it does—and this year, that happens on Monday, September 22 at 2:19 p.m. EDT, according to Time and Date.
This is the moment the sun lines up with Earth’s equator and starts its shift south. It’s one of the only times the planet isn’t favoring one hemisphere over the other, which is why day and night land nearly equally. The name equinox leans on Latin, but like most ancient terms, it oversells the symmetry.
Because of the way sunlight bends in Earth’s atmosphere, your day is still a bit longer than your night. At the equator, daylight stretches around six extra minutes. As you go farther north, that gap gets wider. It’s not enough to notice unless you’re measuring, which most people aren’t.
What matters more is what it signals. In the Northern Hemisphere, the fall equinox ends summer’s upper hand. Days get shorter. Mornings get darker. Sunshine feels stingier.
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Meanwhile, south of the equator, it’s the start of spring. So, it’s technically not the temperature drop that signals fall, it’s the way the sunlight reaches us. But, of course, those are intertwined.
If you want to witness the equinox in real time, go outside at sunset. The sun will set directly due west. This near-exact sunset direction only happens twice a year, during the fall and spring equinox.
The knowledge of equinoxes stretches back thousands of years. Ancient civilizations didn’t have calendar reminders or TikTok, but they tracked the equinox through architecture. At Chichén Itzá, the sun casts a shadow that looks like a serpent slinking down a pyramid staircase. At Angkor Wat, sunrise aligns exactly with the central causeway. These cultures noticed what we now Google.
After this, the dark keeps gaining ground until the solstice in December. Then the light starts clawing its way back. So, get prepped with some cozy blankets, candles, and maybe a SAD light. Just enjoy the seasonal recharge of fall.
The post The Fall Equinox Is Coming: Everything to Know About September’s Shift appeared first on VICE.
