Autumn equinox 2020

Tuesday, 22 September 2020 was the autumn equinox. This is the first day of autumn in UK. 

September has generally been warm, with many days in the mid 20's C in London. It was 24℃ on the equinox. But that was set to change as the forecast for the next few days was down to about 13 C.

It's been a very dry summer. There was hardly any rain in the SE of England.

This year there has been an abundance of apples on the trees around me, and the conkers on the horse chestnut trees have been plentiful and large in size. Also the grape vines have produced lots of fruit this year.

Twin conkers !

I love conkers. As a child I used to play "conkers" with my parents, so that meant collecting as many as I could. And I still can't resist picking them up when I see fat, shiny brown ones lying on the floor. I soon dry out though. I no longer play conkers, instead I use them to throw at cats that disturb the birds and squirrels. 

Conkers is a traditional children's game in Great Britain, played using the seeds of horse chestnut trees. The game has two players, each with a conker threaded onto a piece of string: they take turns striking each other's conker until one breaks. It was quite a painful game as often a conker would hit your hand. And unless you held the string tightly there was the chance it would be pulled from your hand. See Wikipedia on the game of conkers, and another page on Historic UK.

Not many leaves are falling yet except for this tree, I'm not sure if it is a rowan

My blog on Autumn equinox 2017.

Spring equinox 2020 in London

In the Northern Hemisphere, winter ends and spring starts at the moment of the March equinox, which in 2020 was on March 20th. This is following the astronomical calendar, when the start and end dates of spring are based on the changing position of Earth in relation to the sun and the resulting solar events of equinoxes and solstices.

The 2019/20 winter in England was very mild, but the start of 2020 was very wet. London only had a few flakes of snow, on one day, February 27th.

The start of spring was when the whole world was affected by the coronavirus, Covid 19, pandemic. Initially I was enjoying going into London whilst it was very empty.

Spring flowers in Kensington Gardens -

One day I went to Kensal Town area and saw part of the Grand Union Canal -

Close to this is Trellick Tower. This is a Grade II listed tower block on the Cheltenham Estate in Kensal Town, London. It opened in 1972. It has a separate access tower and plant room. The main tower is 98 m high.

On the evening of the equinox, 20 March, pubs and restaurants etc were ordered to close to try and stop the spread of the coronavirus, and transport in London will be cut back, so that is probably the end of my exploring London for a while!

Autumn equinox 2017

22 September 2017 - the first day of autumn and the autumn equinox.

“Equinox” (equal night) is when the sun spends the same amount of time above and below the horizon with the tilt of the Earth exactly the same so it is not slanted away or towards the sun, thus making the hours of darkness and light equal.

“Solstice,” (sun stands still) is when the sun stops before reversing its direction causing sunlight to reach the southernmost and northernmost extremes of the Earth and providing them with longer nights and days.

Both an equinox and solstice happen twice each year. An equinox happens at a specific moment in time unlike the solstice which happens in days.

The solstice happens during summer and winter when the sun is the farthest away. The summer solstice is when days of sunlight are the longest, and the winter solstice is when the days of darkness are also the longest.

The equinox happens during the start of autumn and spring, the time when the sun is closest to the equator.

Having said that, there are still different ideas as to when autumn starts. It depends whether you follow the meteorological or astronomical calendar. There's three weeks difference between them both.

In meteorological terms autumn begins on September 1 and ends on November 30. The meteorological calendar uses the Gregorian calendar to split up the four seasons into three month blocks, which, according to the Met Office, makes it easier to observe forecasting and compare seasonal statistics.

Spring: March, April, May
Summer: June, July, August
Autumn: September, October, November
Winter: December, January, February

However the astronomical calendar says autumn starts on Sept 22 this year. Astronomers base the date of the seasons upon celestial events, in autumn's case the autumnal equinox, when night and day are roughly equal length.

It was mostly a miserable summer in the UK weatherwise. The decent weather left after mid July and the rest of the summer was generally cool, cloudy and wet, with the exception of the August bank holiday weekend (28 Aug). There was an autumnal feel the last 2 weeks of August, with the nights drawing in, cooler air and a few leaves turning brown. Blackberries were ready in July, which is particularly early.

By the autumn equinox, although it felt autumnal, it still looked mostly like summer, as few trees had started to turn brown. 22 Sept in London was beautifully sunny with a clear blue sky.

The exception to this is the 'conker trees'. Many of the horse chestnut trees have a disease caused by a fungus, Guignardia aesculi. It is known as Guignardia leaf blotch, as it shows as brown blotches on the leaves and as seems to be the case, the whole leaf turns brown. The horse chestnut or conker trees have been turning brown since July, due to the blotch, not autumn. The conkers started falling around the end of August.

Spring equinox and heatwave in Malaysia

Sunday 20 March 2016 is the spring equinox and at the same time there is a heatwave in Malaysia. From The Star,
"Be prepared for a double whammy and steaming hot afternoons for the rest of the month.
The situation will be made all the more unbearable with the equinox , when the sun shines directly over the Equator, and the heatwave caused by the El Nino phenomenon.
The heatwave was expected to continue until the end of the month.

Chuping, Perlis recorded the highest temperature in the country this month at 39°C on Monday and Friday.  The temperature in Petaling Jaya at 5pm Friday was 33°C while Alor Setar recorded 36°C; Ipoh and Seberang Perai 35°C; Kuala Pilah, Negri Sembilan, 34°C; Senai, Johor, 34°C; and Malacca, 33°C."

The March vernal equinox is when the sun appears to cross the equator from south to north. The day is roughly the same length as the night.

I escaped from the heat in KL and went to Bali for a few days. The sky was clear and the visibility was so clear. Meanwhile in Klang Valley, Malaysia, the haze was definitely returning, The Star on Monday 21 March "The Education Ministry will announce today whether schools in certain areas of the country will be closed due to the hot weather, even as the haze level continues to rise in the Klang Valley. The ministry was monitoring the hot weather situation and on Saturday, it was found that Kedah and Perlis recorded temperatures as high as 39.2°C."
"Tangau also attributed the haze in the Klang Valley to the dry weather, open burning and local bush fires."

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The heat only lessened in the last week in April when the interseason rains started. April was horribly hazy.