FROM TODAY'S PRINT EDITIONS:
Happy Spring, almost! The vernal equinox occurs tonight at 7:21 p.m. EDT as the sun crosses the plane of the Earth’s equator into the Northern Hemisphere. It’s the traditional start of spring here, and of autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Many of us still associate the arrival of spring with March 21. But 1979 was the last time that occurred in the Eastern Time Zone. And in 2020 we’ll see the first equinox to fall on March 19. The calendar resets with a Leap Year in 2100.
(PHOTO: Mona Sharaf, Reuters, 1998)