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You have probably already noticed the rapidly diminishing daylight hours in recent weeks, with four minutes of daylight being lost every day at our latitude here in Aylesbury Vale – the peak rate of the nights drawing in.

This occurs around the same time as the equinox, which this year fell on September 23.

Contrary to popular belief, this isn’t necessarily the same time that the day and night lengths are equal. The equinox is simply when the sun is directly overhead the equator.

Instead, the correct term for equal lengths of day and night is the ‘equilux’. In our location this year, this date falls on September 25, a couple of days after the equinox.

See what the weather has in store this week

So why is this the case? At the equinox, the time of the sunrise and sunset is determined by when the centre of the sun is visible over the horizon.

This means that you will see some of the sun before the sun has technically risen, and therefore have slightly longer daylight hours than night.

Another factor is light refraction. Due to a combination of the Earth’s atmosphere and the curvature of the Earth itself, we see sunlight even though the sun has completely set.

This adds further seconds or minutes on to the daylight hours.

Over the coming week or so, now we’re past the autumn equinox, the weather will certainly take a more autumnal turn in Aylesbury Vale.

Low pressure is likely to become increasingly established as we go into the weekend, bringing with it the risk of spells of strong winds and heavy rain. Just what we need as the nights grow ever longer!

Risk of strong winds and heavy rain in Aylesbury Vale as weather takes autumnal turn