Today is the autumn equinox in the Northern Hemisphere (actually, it began in Chicago at about 9 last night, but we have 24 hours). Google celebrates that with a short but appealing animated Doodle that you can see by clicking the screenshot below:
The animation shows a black and white cartoon figure hop past five grey trees, transforming the leaves into rich autumnal colours.
With the character’s final leap, the leaves fall from the trees – revealing the word ‘Google’ in gnarled branches. A large red leaf then floats down and lands on the smiling character’s head.
This year, the autumn equinox falls in the northern hemisphere on 23 September – the date where day and night are of equal lengths. The Latin term equinox, or ‘equal night’, is derived from this phenomenon.
Winter is coming!
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and things are getting darker until Dec 21 when it gets lighter but colder.
And getting darker fastest every day right now: this is the steepest part of the sine wave slope( till the March one, when it gets lighter fastest:)
Oak, dove, temple: hymn/ In mutual autumn, in my/ Helpmete vodka. O!
I’ve often wondered. “Fall” is also “autumn.” Is there another word for “spring,” like maybe “vernum”?
In this half of the world it’s Spring and Summer is coming.
Indeed! I have corrected the above because of my northern-hemispheristic bias.
Thanks for that, Jerry.
The Northern Hemisphere bias is not unusual, but it IS unusual for Northern Hemispherians to correct that bias once it’s pointed out.
We’re just jealous of your spring.
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I once had a Classics professor visiting from Australia and during a lecture he had an epiphany as he said, “I can finally talk about Spring and Summer without having to explain when that occurred in Greece”. 😀
That had just struck me. You have your æstival festival to look forward to!
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Indeed, indeed, spring is here! https://www.google.com.br/
Just no one use the ‘S’ word (snow).
Calgary got snow a couple of weeks ago.
Bozeman did too.
Interesting. I send several emails and initials comments to this blog, asking for help on a qenuine question. Nothing. Post a comment about snow. Approved. What are we here for anyway?
Word Press works in mysterious ways…maybe it’s the qualia;-)
We’re here to enjoy whatever Jerry chooses to post. We’re not here to tell him he’s Doing It Wrong.
That belongs on the “Accommodatheist #2” thread in answer to maybe two of the three “religious” questions.
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Happy middle of Autumn (or Spring in the southern hemisphere)!
Yes. Middle. The equinoxes and solstices are the mid points of their respective seasons, not the start.
Or not. Meteorologists (apparently) reckon NH autumn as being September, October and November.
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I don’t know what the weather’s like where you are, but here in the Pacific Northwest, May is not summer, and August is not autumn.
Solar illumination is the forcing function that drives seasonal temperature changes, but the effect isn’t instantaneous; it takes a while for the Earth to respond.
That’s not correct.
The heating or cooling of the Earth lags behind by a few weeks.
Sub
For the latecomers, who cometh late, and clicketh upon the image, yet in their lateness find naught but coloured letters:
https://www.google.com/doodles/first-day-of-autumn-2014
https://www.google.com/doodles/first-day-of-spring-2014