COLORADO – The groundhog predicted an early Spring and we’ve had well above average temperatures lately. Last weekend felt nothing like February, with areas of the plains hitting the low 70’s. 40’s are more typical for this time of year.
However, we don’t actually get to skip ahead to Spring. We’ve got the rest of February to go before we get to Meteorological Spring, which begins on March 1st. By then, we’ll have nearly one additional hour of daylight to work with.
Official Spring begins later in March with the Vernal Equinox. This year that happens on March 20th at 3:58 pm mountain time. By then we’ll have over 12 hours of daylight and those daylight hours will only continue to increase as we really get into the season.
Those additional daylight hours will also come with better sun angles as the sun migrates further north. That combination will generally give us warmer temperatures heading into Spring and Summer.
Before we get to official Spring, we’ll start Daylight Saving Time on March 10th. Clocks will be moved an hour ahead. That delays our sunrise time, but also keeps the daylight around a little further into the evening hours.
We’ve got a lot of changes ahead as we head towards Spring!
