How many days until spring: March equinox times, 2027 to 2031
The first day of spring is the day of the March equinox. Each year the moment comes nearly 6 hours later on the clock, and every leap day pulls it back by a full day. Dates and times are in your time zone.
Year
Date and time
Days away
2027
4:25 PM EDT
146 days
2028
10:17 PM EDT
511 days
2029
4:02 AM EDT
877 days
2030
9:52 AM EDT
1,242 days
2031
3:41 PM EDT
1,607 days
The March equinox 2027 across U.S. time zones
The March equinox happens at the same instant everywhere, so the local date can differ between U.S. time zones. Each time follows that zone's own daylight saving time rules.
Time zone
Date and time
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
Saturday, March 2020:25 UTC
Chamorro (Guam)
Sunday, March 216:25 AM ChST
Atlantic (San Juan)
Saturday, March 204:25 PM AST
Eastern (New York)
Saturday, March 204:25 PM EDT
Central (Chicago)
Saturday, March 203:25 PM CDT
Mountain (Denver)
Saturday, March 202:25 PM MDT
Arizona (Phoenix)
Saturday, March 201:25 PM MST
Pacific (Los Angeles)
Saturday, March 201:25 PM PDT
Alaska (Anchorage)
Saturday, March 2012:25 PM AKDT
Hawaii (Honolulu)
Saturday, March 2010:25 AM HST
Samoa (Pago Pago)
Saturday, March 209:25 AM SST
When is the first day of spring?
Spring begins at the March equinox, the moment the center of the Sun crosses the plane of Earth’s equator heading north. NASA notes that some people call it the northward equinox for that reason, and the noon Sun keeps climbing until the June solstice. The 2027 crossing is due at 4:25 PM EDT on Saturday, March 20, 2027.
Where you live decides the date. In the 50 states and Puerto Rico, the March equinox falls on March 19 or March 20 in every year this century. Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, 10 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), see it on March 20 or March 21, and it was March 21 there in 2026. The time-zone table on this page shows the next one in each U.S. zone.
Church calendars fix the spring equinox at March 21 every year for setting Easter, so the Easter Sunday countdown follows that fixed date rather than the astronomical moment.
Spring markers in order
Marker
Date
Set by
Meteorological spring begins
March 1
Whole months grouped by temperature
Daylight saving time begins
Second Sunday in March (March 8 to 14)
Energy Policy Act of 2005
Astronomical spring begins
March 19 or 20 (March 20 or 21 in Guam)
The March equinox
Meteorological spring ends
May 31
End of the March to May block
Astronomical spring ends
June 20 or 21 in Eastern Time
The June solstice
In Eastern Time, clocks spring forward 5 to 12 days before the equinox, at 2:00 AM on the second Sunday in March. Hawaii, most of Arizona and the territories stay on standard time. Meteorological spring is a fixed 92 days, while astronomical spring starts almost three weeks later and runs a little longer. The clock change countdown tracks the March switch.
Are day and night equal on the first day of spring?
No. On the March equinox, daylight runs several minutes longer than darkness. The National Weather Service and NASA point to two reasons:
Sunrise and sunset are measured at the Sun’s edge. Sunrise is the instant the top of the disk appears, and sunset the instant it disappears, so the center of the Sun is below the horizon at both.
The air bends sunlight. Refraction lifts the Sun’s image above its true position, so it shows a little before it rises and lingers a little after it sets.
For most of the United States, the day with equal light and dark comes a few days before the March equinox. When spring ends, the summer solstice countdown picks up the next season.