The winter blues come to an end today as spring makes its appearance. It;s the first day of spring.

The vernal equinox, as it is properly known, is the moment when the center of the apparent disc of the sun crosses the celestial equator and moves from the southern hemisphere into the northern hemisphere of the sky. A lot of people refer to the annual vernal equinox as “equal night.” This means an equal amount of daylight and darkness, due to the sun’s position above the equator.

This year’s first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere occurred at precisely at 4:01 a.m. according to NASA. The date and time of the equinox varies slightly from year to year. The Earth is not tilted toward or away from the sun on the first day of fall as well, also called the autumnal equinox