Chipmunks retreat to their underground tunnels. Frogs burrow deep into mudholes to wait out the winter. Swans, geese and ducks begin their migration south. Related: Stink Bugs, Other Insects May Enter Your Home Soon: How To Stop Them.It’s rutting - or mating - season for deer, elk and moose, and males will battle it out by thrusting their antlers together until one of them gives up or dies. Fall isn’t just a time to start winterizing homes against stink bugs and other insects and buttoning up other things outside. Go outside around sunset or sunrise, find a landmark and mark the sun’s location in relation to it.ĥ. For the directionally challenged, it’s a good time for a reset. No matter where you are in the world, the sun will rise due east and set due west during the fall equinox (the same thing happens during the spring equinox). That means the reds, oranges, yellows and pinks make it through for your sunset-viewing pleasure.Ĥ. The Weather Channel offers an explanation: As dry, clean Canadian air begins to sweep across the country, fewer colors of the rainbow spectrum are scattered by air molecules. Thank Canada for spectacular fall sunsets with more vivid pinks, reds and oranges than at any other time of the year. What this means is the autumnal equinox occurs about six hours later than it did the year prior, which eventually moves the date by a day.ģ. Here’s the reason: A year is defined as 365 days by the Gregorian calendar, but it takes the Earth 365-¼ days to orbit the sun. 24 since 1931, and that won’t happen again until 2303. And the first day of fall hasn’t fallen on Sept. 21 autumnal equinox hasn’t occurred in several millennia, but some folks alive today may see it the next couple of times it rolls around, in 2092 and then again four years later in 2096. Usually, it’s on the 22nd, as it is this year, or the 23rd, but it can occur as early as Sept. The date of the September equinox varies. Related: Aurora Borealis Displays More Likely In Active Solar Storm Season | Aurora Borealis Hunting: What’s A Kp Index, More Northern Lights TipsĢ.And right now, the chances of seeing auroras are greater as the sun approaches “solar maximum” in its 11-year cycle and the number of sunspots ramps up.

Both the spring and fall equinoxes are good aurora seasons, but autumn produces a surplus of geomagnetic storms - almost twice the annual average. There’s no guarantee, of course, but the chances of seeing stunning northern lights displays increase after the fall equinox, according to NASA.

Here are five other things to know about the September equinox:ġ.

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