The sun's incoming light from 93 million miles away is bent by our shell of an atmosphere, something called astronomical refraction. The thicker the atmosphere, the more the sun's light is bent. From now until the first day of summer, June 21, we'll get a lot more daylight as the sun shines more directly over our Northern Hemisphere and takes a longer and higher arc across the sky.

Why is it that we can't get rid of famous myths, everything from the Loch Ness monster to aliens landing in Arizona, from bad luck on Friday the 13th to only being able to balance an egg on the first days of spring and autumn.

Almost without fail on the first day of spring, otherwise known as the vernal equinox, you'll see either a TV weatherman or an anchor break away from reading the teleprompter to attempt to balance an egg on its side. When they finally stand on its end they say, "Look, this really works on the first day of spring!" The truth of the matter is that if they tried that on a newscast in July, you would be just as successful, and no, not because they shaved the bottom of the egg but because the vernal equinox has nothing to do with balancing anything! You can pull off that egg trick anytime with enough patience.

The vernal equinox on Monday implies balance because since the sun is shining directly over the Earth's equator, both the northern and southern hemispheres receive the same amount of solar radiation and everyone worldwide has equal amount of daylight and nighttime. Guess what? That's yet another myth!

Certainly it's true about both hemispheres receiving equal sunlight, but actually days are already longer than nights. Just check the weather page of the Butler Eagle and you'll see that we already have 12 hours and 10 minutes of daylight. Equal day and nights were achieved on St. Patrick's Day.

Earth's atmosphere is responsible for this. The sun's incoming light from 93 million miles away is bent by our shell of an atmosphere, something called astronomical refraction. The thicker the atmosphere, the more the sun's light is bent.

Whenever the sun is rising or setting any time of year, its light has to cut through a lot more of the atmospheric shell than it does when the sun is overhead. The bending of the sunlight is so extreme at the horizon that the sun's disk will appear above the horizon when it's actually below it, giving us extra daylight.

From now until the first day of summer, June 21, we'll get a lot more daylight as the sun shines more directly over our Northern Hemisphere and the sun takes a longer and higher arc across the sky. This week the sun will reach a noontime zenith of 45 degrees above the southern horizon and by June 21 it'll rise up to around 73 degrees above the horizon at lunchtime.

Even though astronomical spring is upon us, we all know that actual springlike weather may be somewhat lagging behind. Sooner or later, though, we will break out of winter weather's jail. Trees will turn green and nature begins anew. In fact, up until around the 1750s, England and the American Colonies celebrated New Year's Day on the first day of spring. They were popping champagne corks as flowers were blooming. It kind of make sense to me with all the new life.

England and the colonies were still operating under an old calendar with roots that dated back to Babylonian times. Most of the western world, especially Roman Catholic countries, switched over to the Gregorian calendar back in the late 1500s. That calendar had Jan. 1 as the first day of the year. In actuality it was a correction of the Julian calendar that went back to 46 B.C. that also had Jan. 1 as the start of the New Year. England finally decided in 1750 that it was time to get in sync with the rest of western world and adapt the Gregorian calendar.

Happy spring and happy new year!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and author of the new book, "Pennsylvania Starwatch," available at bookstores and at his Web site www.lynchandthestars.com