{"id":5087,"date":"2014-03-01T14:13:58","date_gmt":"2014-03-01T14:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ablogfrommydog.com\/contents1a\/?p=5087"},"modified":"2014-03-01T14:19:14","modified_gmt":"2014-03-01T14:19:14","slug":"meteorological-spring-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ablogfrommydog.com\/contents1a\/2014\/03\/meteorological-spring-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Meteorological spring begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the start of the \u00a0Meteorological spring I thought I would venture out this morning into Bitts Park, Carlisle, \u00a0to see if nature had also realised the arrival of a new season.<\/p>\n

\"Daffodils<\/a>
Daffodils in the morning sunshine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many of this mornings weather forecasters were using the words ‘meteorological spring’ which I found interesting as I had not heard of it before.<\/p>\n

Meteorological spring definition<\/h2>\n

It turns out that the boffins who keep an eye on the weather use a different calendar to the normal two leggers.<\/p>\n

According to the Met Office<\/a>\u00a0website there are two calendars in the humans world, a Gregorian calendar and an\u00a0astronomical calendar\u00a0.<\/p>\n

The first one splits the seasons into four sections to make it easier to keep records and make comparisons.<\/p>\n

The seasons are defined as Spring (March, April, May), Summer (June, July, August), Autumn (September, October, November) and Winter (December, January, February).<\/p>\n

The meteorological or climetological calendar, as it is sometimes referred to, \u00a0defines Spring \u00a0in the northern hemisphere, as starting on 1 March, or today.<\/p>\n

\"Crocus<\/a>
Crocus in full bloom<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Astronomical calendar<\/strong><\/p>\n

The second calendar is the astronomical calendar and is a little bit more complicated.<\/p>\n

It determines the seasons due to the tilt of the Earth’s rotational axis in relation to its orbit around the sun. This has been calculated to be \u00a023.5 degrees.<\/p>\n

The Earth’s orbit around the sun defines periods of time known as\u00a0equinoxes and solstices.<\/p>\n

Spring starts soon<\/h3>\n

These are considered to be the astronomical transition points between the seasons and mark key stages in the astronomical cycle of the earth.<\/p>\n

In a year there are two equinoxes (spring and autumn) and two solstices (summer and winter).<\/p>\n

\"Charlie<\/a>
Charlie wants to go sploging<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To further complicate things, \u00a0the\u00a0astronomical calendar seasons do not happen on a particular date. This year Spring begins in the astronomical calendar on 20 March at 16:47 GMT.<\/p>\n

For those pooches who like a bit of science this is when the\u00a0Sun will shine directly on the equator and there will be nearly equal amounts of day and night throughout the world.<\/p>\n

Summer not far away<\/h4>\n

Looking forward to the rest of the year we can see that summer begins on June 21 with the arrival of Autumn on September 21.<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Vernal Equinox (Spring) March 20 2014 16:57 GMT<\/li>\n
  • Summer Solstice (Summer) June 21 2014 10:51 GMT<\/li>\n
  • Autumnal Equinox (Fall) September 23 2014 02:29 GMT<\/li>\n
  • Winter Solstice (Winter) December 21 2014 23:03 GMT<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    After all that science I do not have to tell you that what it means for us are \u00a0longer walks, warmer temperatures and loads of fun.<\/p>\n

    Until next time<\/p>\n

    Woofs and licks<\/p>\n

    Charlie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    With the start of the Meteorological spring I thought I would venture out this morning to see if nature had also realised the arrival of a new season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":5105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,681],"tags":[5089,867,543,5086,5090,5088,5085,3538,5087,5070,4],"class_list":["post-5087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-expeditions","category-featured","tag-climetological-calendar","tag-daffodils","tag-earth","tag-equinoxes","tag-gregorian","tag-meteorological","tag-meteorological-spring","tag-nature","tag-solstices","tag-spring","tag-weather","entry"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.ablogfrommydog.com\/contents1a\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/daffodil_feb2014_04d-600x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/www.ablogfrommydog.com\/contents1a\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/daffodil_feb2014_04d-600x413.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.ablogfrommydog.com\/contents1a\/author\/mogsy\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ablogfrommydog.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ablogfrommydog.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ablogfrommydog.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ablogfrommydog.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ablogfrommydog.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5087"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ablogfrommydog.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5100,"href":"https:\/\/www.ablogfrommydog.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5087\/revisions\/5100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ablogfrommydog.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ablogfrommydog.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ablogfrommydog.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ablogfrommydog.com\/contents1a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}