Fall is here… Break out the pumpkin spice

Fall officially starts today, Monday, September 22, 2025, at 1:19 p.m., the moment when the sun crosses the equator, resulting in nearly equal amounts of day and night, signaling the end of the summer season.

Because of some technical issues with how sunrise and sunset are recorded, and the fact the suns light gets refracted by our atmosphere, we get a bit more sun above the horizon than beneath it, even though the translation of equinox in Latin is equal night.

If sunrise and sunset were defined as the moment the center of the sun passed the horizon, then the day and night would be exactly 12 hours long. But sunrise and sunset are defined as the moment the upper edge of the sun touches the eastern and the western horizon. This makes the day just a bit longer than the night on the equinoxes.

Our true day of equal times of sun and no sun will be this Thursday. After that day, we see less sun above the horizon than below until March 17th, 2026. A few days before the Spring Equinox.

One other factor that makes an impact is how light refracts, or bends, in Earth’s atmosphere. This refraction causes the sun’s upper edge to be visible from Earth several minutes before the edge actually reaches the horizon. The same thing happens at sunset when you can see the sun for several minutes after it has dipped under the horizon. This causes each day to be about six minutes longer than it would be without this refraction.

But even without all this technical jargon, we see it’s fall by the changing of the leaves which is underway.

The Travel Wisconsin fall color map has Fond du Lac County at about 20-25% of maximum color with peak color happening the second week of October.

If you want to see more color right now, a drive to Florence and Forest Counties will give you about 40% color and Taylor County comes in at about 50%.