Too Cold for Easter
This Easter seems so cold. My childhood Easter memories are warm sunny days with tons of daffodils blooming and lawn grass tall enough to hide Easter eggs. My grandmother's birthday was April 17, and Easter often fell on her birthday, so I knew long ago that Easter is a movable holiday.
I did some research. As you may know, Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. In other words, start with the first day of Spring (this year it is March 19th at 11:40 PM Greenwich time). Next, find out when the first full moon is after the first day of Spring (this year it is March 21st). Then Easter is the first Sunday after that full moon (this year it is March 23rd), making this the earliest (and coldest) Easter Sunday since 1913.
In the Western Church, the earliest day (of the 35 possible dates) for Easter is March 22 and the latest is April 25. Easter has not fallen on March 22 since 1818, and will not do so again until 2285. It falls on the second earliest day, March 23, in 2008, but will not do so again until 2160. Easter last fell on the latest possible date, April 25, in 1943 and will next fall on that date in 2038. However, it will fall on April 24, the second latest day, in 2011. The cycle of Easter dates repeats after exactly 5,700,000 years, with April 19 being the most common date.
posted by Pedicularis @ 7:51 AM
2 Comments:
Thanks for reminding me how Easter was calculated. I knew it was related to the Equinox and the full moon but was too lazy to google it . . . :-)
We woke up to snow here and the daffodils just started to bloom . . . blech ::grin::
I should caution you -- I glossed over some details. For example, there was some mention of using a standard date for the vernal equinox, e.g., March 21. Doing so could change Easter by a month compared to a purely astronomical calculation of the timing between the full moon and the vernal equinox. Also, the time zone might have an impact on deciding which Sunday follows the full moon, impacting Easter by a week. Non-western churches have adopted different definitions, which gives different results for Easter some years.
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