Happy leap day!

If you’ve looked at your calendar on February 29th then you probably noticed something a little different.

It’s leap day.

But why do we have leap day?

Every four years, Nathan Wood gets the same question about this special day on the calendar.

He said, “We get a couple of kids that say ‘hey, why are we doing this and what’s it for’?”

The reason for this extra day is all about science.

“It takes the Earth 365,242 days to go around the Sun,” he said.

Over time, that small fraction of a day adds up, making the extra day necessary. Whether it’s a leap year or not.

For astronomers, spring always arrives around March 21st thanks to a calendar chance made more than 400 years ago.

In the old calendar February had 30 days, but: “over a long period of time that was going to be too many days in the calendar. So they adjusted it with the Gregorian calendar.”

Here’s another interesting fact about leap day. There’s another winter and spring that meteorologists celebrate – meteorological spring. And that’s delayed by a day because of leap day.

It’s something that’s not as well known.

Angie Moore certainly had no idea.

“I’m not even going to notice,” she said.

But whether it’s on March 1 or three weeks from (Monday), some people are ready for spring.

“Because the leaves start turning green again and the grass too. You know you have to deal with some rain but that’s (fine).”

Spring is coming, along with the usual swings in Colorado weather.

Leap years don’t occur every four years. The last year of a century not divisible by 400 does not have a leap year. That means that 2000 had a leap year but 2100 will not.