Fall Equinox Arrives Saturday

Earlier this month Patch marked the 'unofficial' last day of summer with a post about the closing of Renton's beaches. Today — on the autumnal equinox — we'd like to celebrate the first official day of fall.

But what is the autumnal equinox? 

Equinoxes fall on the halfway point between solstices and occur, according to the Washington Post, "when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are of roughly equal length, everywhere in the world."

The nearly equal 12 hours of light and darkness can be attributed to the Earth's lack of an axial tilt on the day of the equinox. In fact, the word equinox is derived from the Latin words aequus, meaning equal, and nox, meaning night.

In Sammamish, according to sunrisesunset.com, the sun will come up at 6:55 a.m. and set at 7:07 p.m on the autumnal equinox. As you notice, that is not actually a perfect 12 hours of light and darkness. As timeanddate.com reports, this is because of issues such as light refraction and other reasons.

See ya next year, summer. Hello fall, and happy autumnal equinox!

However, the first day of fall hasn't reduced our danger of wildfires locally. The National Weather Service has issued a and Renton fire officials remain on high alert due to continued dry conditions in its service area.