By Ojai author David E. Moody
Most of us know that people who live in Alaska or near the North Pole do not see much daylight for long stretches of time, while those who live on the equator see a great deal of sunlight. And so you might think that on the equator the sun is exactly, directly overhead pretty often — maybe once a day, every day, for most or all of the year.
But actually that is not the case. Because the Earth’s axis of rotation is tilted, the sun is almost never directly overhead even on the equator. Instead, the entire northern hemisphere leans toward the sun all day long and all night long for six months of the year, and away from the sun all day and all night for the other six months of the year.

The transition point between those two periods occurs for one brief moment on a single day when the sun is precisely, directly overhead at the equator, passing from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere, (or vice versa). That single moment will occur today, March 20, at 10:37 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time.
We celebrate the day on which this moment occurs as the vernal equinox — vernal meaning spring, and equinox meaning night and day are of equal length.
David E. Moody, Ph.D., is a longime Ojai resident, writer and teacher.