Summer transitions into autumn

At 7:43 a.m. Sunday, just about the time many are getting ready for church, something wonderful will occur. While we may not fully appreciate what occurs for a month or so when the weather eventually cooperates, you can still greet what will happen with as much autumnal equinox enthusiasm as you can muster on what will surely be another unseasonably warm Oklahoma day in September.

That’s right, Sunday’s the first day of fall. It will replace summer, despite what the thermometer might indicate. As social media memes observe as autumn approaches: “Get ready for pumpkins, mosquitoes, humidity, shorts and flipflops — OK, so it’s basically summer, but with pumpkins.”

It’s that time of the year when some people buy all the pumpkin spice lattes they can drink, while others grip onto the last days of warm summer sunshine.

The passage from summer to fall means — eventually — sweater weather and cooler temperatures, and a growing number of dark hours as each day passes.

Autumn is a season of various emotions — sadness that summer is passed, and joy for the changing colors of leaves; dread of shorter days, and excitement for upcoming holidays; and grief for those no longer here, and anticipation of new memories still to be made.

No matter if you view it with dread or delight, the autumnal equinox will occur, and then we’re in the home stretch for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Autumnal is the easy one, but what is an equinox, and why use it?

Equinox comes from a couple of Latin words, and means “equal night.” It’s when the noon sun is directly overhead at the equator … well, for at least a moment anyway. When the sun is directly overhead at the equator, the expectation is that the whole earth experiences 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness.

But that’s not what really happens. Equal nights won’t actually happen this weekend, and equal days probably won’t happen either. The reality is that the actual occurrence of equal day and equal night happens a few days later.

In Oklahoma, as well as with our neighbors in Arkansas, Texas and across the map, the summer that will end Sunday won’t just seem as hot as usual, data shows it really might be as the climate crisis pushes temperatures into record territory.

While this summer has not be as brutal as last year, at least in our neck of the woods, there were three days in early August when Sequoyah County eclipsed the 100-degree mark, according to Oklahoma Mesonet, as well as plenty of days since June that temperatures flirted with the century mark.

But cooler temperatures reminiscent of mid-September — when morning temperatures dipped to 50 degrees three days in a row on Sept. 8-10 — may return by next weekend.

And it will get better. Highs a month from now should be in the upper 70s, and by the first week of November, temperatures are expected to top out in the upper 60s. Before autumn becomes winter in the waning days before Christmas, expect highs in the 50s, with 40s on tap for the new year.