Welcome, Fall. You Feel a Lot Like Summer

Fall's big moment lands at 8:05pm ET on Tuesday, when the sun lines up directly over the equator and the Northern Hemisphere's autumn officially begins—astronomically, at least. As USA Today reports, at that instant, shared worldwide, day and night run close to 12 hours each, though Earth's atmosphere bends light enough that the truly equal split arrives a few days later. Historically speaking, Mental Floss notes that the equinox has gone hand in hand with the last harvest, though its psychological association is often of cooler temperatures.

Don't drag out your sweaters just yet, though. Climate scientist Zach Labe says a combination of El Niño and human-driven global warming points to a fall that skews hotter than usual in the US, capping what he calls a summer that "was one for the record books." August was the warmest on record globally, and 2026 so far is the hottest year to date for the lower 48, with several Western states notching record heat. Unseasonal warmth or not, NPR reports that the equinox provides its own "henge" effect, in which city streets that run east to west align with the sunrise and sunset. "The things we built helped us to frame the universe in a certain way," says a professor of urban design.