The spring equinox in the Southern Hemisphere was on Saturday, for New Zealand it was at precisely 8:02am – not that you’ll notice it this weekend as it’s a slow process that takes another couple weeks to really show up.

WeatherWatch.co.nz says this means days and nights are now of equal length, so as of this weekend the days will start to get longer than the nights…and this will continue on until the summer solstice on December 22nd which is the day with the most amount of available sunshine.

The equinox is also when the windy westerlies usually kick off – but not this year, as the winds arrived earlier – so we don’t expect any dramatic changes to what we already have. In saying that – Sunday looks windy in many places, as does Monday.

This time of year is when the days are growing at their fastest – we generally gain an extra 20 minutes or so of extra sunlight every week in/around September.

– Image / A direct view of the South Pole shows cold weather (purple) compared to the warmth of the subtropics (orange) / Earth.nullschool.net 

– WeatherWatch.co.nz