When is the First Day of Spring in 2018?
This year, the first day of spring take place on Tuesday, March 20 - in the UK it will be marked officially at 4.15pm GMT.
The March equinox is the date used by astronomers to mark the start of spring in the northern hemisphere, signalling the beginning of longer days ahead and, hopefully, warmer weather to come.
The actual date of the first day of spring changes every year as it is based on the astronomical calendar.
This year, the meteorological spring season started on March 1 and finishes on May 31.
THE chilly days are still lingering as we head into spring.
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When does spring start?
How you define the first day of spring depends on whether you follow the astronomical or meteorological seasons.
This year, spring will take place between March 20 and June 21, if you use the astronomical method.
But if you follow the meteorological calendar it's already started – with the season spanning from March 1 to May 31.
Getty - Contributor Don't panic if you're not a fan of winter, it won't last forever
How is the date for spring decided?
There are two different methods used for determining the dates of the seasons, the astronomical or meteorological method.
The Met Office tend to use the meteorological seasons, these are based on the annual temperature cycle and the state of the atmosphere.
The meteorological seasons also co-ordinate with the calendar ad they consist of splitting the year into four three month seasons.
Using this system the seasons are defined as: Spring (March, April, May), Summer (June, July, August), Autumn (September, October, November) and Winter (December, January, February).
By this system, spring starts on March 1 and runs through until May 31.
Getty Images Spring will arrive on March 1 or March 20, depending on your preference of seasonal calendar
Why do the dates of spring change each year?
The other system is to use the astronomical seasons.
These refer to the position of Earth's orbit in relation to the sun taking into account equinoxes (when the length of the day is exactly the same as the length of the night) and solstices (the longest and shortest days of the year).
If you want to get technical, the astronomical calendar determines the seasons by when the Earth's rotational axis is at a 23.5 degree in relation to its orbit around the sun.
By this system spring starts on March 20 and runs through until June 21.
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What causes the seasons?
The seasons are due to the Earth rotating around the Sun.
The way the Earth rotates means that certain areas of the globe are tilted towards the Sun while other parts are tilted away from it.
This means there are different levels of sunlight reaching each part of the globe, causing the seasons.
A general view of Tulip flowers are set to bloom for spring (Photo by Yawar Nazir/Getty Images)
Despite the snow over the last few days, today is in fact the first day of Spring.
We can finally wave goodbye to the winter months and look forward to lighter days and blooming flowers.
Girls who start on social media younger more unhappy
The Spring Equinox is based on the astronomical calendar which determines the start of the season by looking at Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
An equinox is the moment the plane of the earth’s equator passes through the centre of the sun’s disk and occurs twice a year – once at the start of Spring and once at the start of Autumn.
To celebrate, we have put together a collection of poems, quotes and images to get you in the Spring mood.
Frost-locked all the winter,
Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,
What shall make their sap ascend
That they may put forth shoots?
Tips of tender green,
Leaf, or blade, or sheath;
Telling of the hidden life
That breaks forth underneath,
Life nursed in its grave by Death.
Blows the thaw-wind pleasantly,
Drips the soaking rain,
By fits looks down the waking sun:
Young grass springs on the plain;
Young leaves clothe early hedgerow trees;
Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,
Swollen with sap put forth their shoots;
Curled-headed ferns sprout in the lane;
Birds sing and pair again.
There is no time like Spring,
When life’s alive in everything,
Before new nestlings sing,
Before cleft swallows speed their journey back
Along the trackless track –
God guides their wing,
He spreads their table that they nothing lack, –
Before the daisy grows a common flower
Before the sun has power
To scorch the world up in his noontide hour.
There is no time like Spring,
Like Spring that passes by;
There is no life like Spring-life born to die, –
Piercing the sod,
Clothing the uncouth clod,
Hatched in the nest,
Fledged on the windy bough,
Strong on the wing:
There is no time like Spring that passes by,
Now newly born, and now
Hastening to die.
Christina Rossettis
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
Philip Larkin
The beautiful spring came;
and when Nature resumes her loveliness,
the human soul is apt to revive also
Harriet Ann Jacobs
Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and
changing everything carefully
E.E. Cummings
When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
‘Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!’ O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
‘Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!’ O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.
William Shakespeare
Spring is just too cute (Picture: Getty)
Spring Quotes
You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming – Pablo Neruda (Chilean poet and politician)
In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt – Margaret Atwood (Canadian poet and novelist)
No winter last forever; no spring skips its turn – Hal Borland (American author and journalist)
Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. – Rainer Maria Rilke (Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist)
Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s party!’ – Robin Williams (American actor and comedian)
Spring is a true reconstructionist – Henry Timrod (American poet)
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