An exiting low pressure center will allow our skies to clear off, and a steady warming trend will settle into western Nevada through the rest of the week. Wednesday should see sunshine with a high in the mid-60s, climbing to the mid-70s by Friday and peaking on Saturday around 80 degrees.

Yesterday, I mentioned that although “equinox” means “equal day”, the day is actually 8 minutes longer than the night at the equinoxes. There are two reasons for this. First, sunrise is defined as the first appearance of the top of the sun (on a hypothetical flat horizon), and sunset is the last appearance of the top of the sun (which was the bottom at sunrise.) That requires the sun to travel an additional distance of its diameter across the sky, which adds a couple of minutes. Beyond that, the earth’s atmosphere bends the sunlight, allowing us to see the sun before it would rise and after it sets were there no atmosphere. So if you don’t have enough hours in your day, at least we can add a few minutes.