If you're ready for good news, we've got some for you: Spring is coming earlier this year than it has since 1896.

The vernal (spring) equinox – which marks the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere – will take place Thursday, March 19, throughout the entire United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. This is "earlier than any other equinox in the last 124 years," AccuWeather said.

The equinox usually falls on either March 20 or 21. "The complicated reasons for 2020's earlier equinox involve leap years, centuries and the length of time it takes Earth to revolve around the sun," CBS News said.

The equinox, which takes place at 11:50 p.m. EDT Thursday, is the precise moment the sun's rays shine directly on the equator. (For everyone outside the eastern time zone, it will be at 10:50 p.m. CDT, 9:50 p.m. MDT and 8:50 p.m. PDT.)

Thursday will be one of two days out of the year – the other being the day of the autumnal equinox in September – when the Earth's axis is tilted neither toward nor away from the sun, resulting in roughly 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness almost everywhere on Earth.

So it's an "equal night," which is where the word equinox originated: the two Latin words aequus (equal) and nox (night), according to the National Weather Service. Each day for the next three months, the sun will get higher in the sky – and the daily amount of daylight longer – until the summer solstice in June.

It's also one of only two days each year when almost every spot on Earth – except the poles – experiences a sunrise at due east and a sunset at due west.

Meteorologists, who define the seasons differently, said spring began March 1.

For the folks down under in the Southern Hemisphere, it's the autumnal equinox this Thursday, marking the first day of autumn.

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