Due to the Earth’s tilt and position around the Sun, things get very light and warm in summer for us in UK, and then winter becomes very cold and dark. But if you are on the equator, surely the amount of light you get won’t change much?
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You made me curious and I googled it. According to [this article on national geographic](https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/season)…
“Places near the Equator experience little seasonal variation. They have about the same amount of daylight and darkness throughout the year. These places remain warm year-round. Near the Equator, regions typically have alternating rainy and dry seasons.”
Edit: though it doesn’t say what it’s like in deserts…
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The only reason we experience seasons at all is axial tilt. The Earth is tilted roughly 23.5 degrees on axis with respect to its orbit. This means that throughout the year, both north and south extremities will experience large variations in solar exposure resulting in seasonal variation. It also means that regions on the equator still experiences some seasonal variation, but to a much lesser degree. Equatorial inhabitants do experience seasonal variation but not nearly to the degree as northern or southern inhabitants.
I’m from Kenya east Africa,am located within the equator.We used to experience (until climate change happened) normal rainfalls from the months of April to late August and normal sunshine till early December,the remaining months was a fine balance of favourable temp as far as the town and region I’ve stayed in longer.
Seasons?
We don’t experience adverse season shifts like the polar regions away from the equator.Though we have towns in Kenya{ a place like Limuru town(The coldest town throughout the year) and a town like Nanyuki( Once in a calender yr experience ‘snow showers’ for lack of a better word). We also have 60-70% of semi arid Kenyan land majorly the northern parts and they receive less rainfall if not no rain at all(the latter is the normalcy unfortunately)}.
Prolonged daytime light, darkness and prolonged nights?
It happens at times but it’s not that easy to notice maybe difference by minutes never near an hr/hrs.
A fan of football here! Mid Oct to November,the EPL(Premier league) adjusts it’s kickoff time +1hr.I don’t know how they do that but seasons are interesting
There are dry (summer) and wet (rainy) seasons. The day and night cycle doesn’t change.
Source: I live there
Something I found interesting closer to the equator is that they don’t experience long sunrise/sunsets. I’m near NYC, and twilight/sunset lasts a long time; a very gradual dimming of the sky while the sun sets. In the tropics, the sun goes down and boom, instant night.
I have a friend who lived in Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia, which is pretty much right on the equator. When I visited him there, he explained their weather:
* There’s the dry season. Every day is 32°C, overcast, with 100% humidity. It feels like it’s going to rain, but it doesn’t rain.
* Then there’s the wet season. Every day is 32°C, overcast, with 100% humidity. It feels like it’s going to rain, and at about 4pm it does rain, very heavily.
So yeah, they have seasons.
Because of the tilt of the earth, the sun’s position over head changes through the year. Have you ever noticed the sun sets further south in the winter, and further north in the summer (outside the tropics in the north hemisphere)? Summer “noon” the sun is more overhead than in the winter. The sunlight is more direct and srtognger, and the days are longer. The further away from the equator, the more these things happen. All because of the tilt. In between the tropics, these effects are less. The days are not as drastically longer or shorter from summer to winter, noon sun is more above your head and more direct year round. In general the effects of the tilt are more muted, leading to more consistent weather and seasons.
Robinson Crusoe has a really good description of the mechanics behind seasons around the equator or in the tropics. In higher latitudes peoples are generally familiar with the cycle of the seasons when the hemisphere is pointed towards the sun it’s summer, pointed away is winter, and the times in between are spring and fall. In the tropics the cycle is shifted but not in the way that australian winter is american summer. On the equator, the sun’s rays are most direct when the rest of the world is experiencing spring or fall and least direct when the rest of the planet is in winter or summer. As a result, equatorial regions have two seasons that alternate twice a year. Those two seasons will be less extreme than seasons in higher latitudes and are usually called wet and dry
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