You won’t be seeing the leaves change color for another couple of months, but we have made the transition from summer to fall, at least according to one definition of the seasons. 

There are a few different ways to break up the twelve months of the calendar. Astronomical seasons are defined by the Earth's position around the sun and feature solstices and equinoxes. Meteorological seasons break up the year based on annual temperatures. Meteorological Summer features the three warmest months of the year, while Meteorological Winter features the three coldest. Now, we are going to discuss a third type of season, solar seasons.

 

Solar seasons are defined by the amount of daylight expected during that time of the year. Solar winter is the three-month period with the least amount of daylight, solar spring is the three months where we gain daylight at the fastest rate, solar summer is the three-month period with the most daylight, and solar autumn (or fall) is the three months where we lose daylight at the fastest rate.

 

August 6th was the midway point between the summer solstice (June 20th) and the autumnal equinox (September 22nd), which means we officially made the transition from solar summer to solar fall.

Solar fall will run through November 4th, and during that time we will see our days get significantly shorter. We will lose a total of 3 hours and 52 minutes of daylight between the start and end of the season, with the most daylight being lost from late September to early October. From September 16th to October 3rd, we will lose 2 minutes and 42 seconds of daylight per day, and by the end of that stretch our sunset times will be at 7:00 pm.

 

Solar winter will start on November 5th and will run until February 2nd, 2026. During that time, we will see the shortest days of the year, where our total daylight will be 9 hours and 12 minutes.