By Rusty Dawkins, Meteorologist/Climatologist
This is one of those years that only happens once every four years. A leap year! Since this is a leap year, we tack on another day to February to balance out the seasons. If we didn’t do this every four years or so, our seasons would eventually get out of sync and winter would be summer and spring would be fall. That would take an awfully long time to do, but it would happen! Since our year is technically 365 and one quarter days long, every four years another day is added to the calendar to take care of those four extra “quarter long” days. It’s kind of like a clock that runs just a little fast and every now and then you have to correct it. To get even more specific, an extra day is added to every year divisible by four but NOT for years which are both divisible by 100 and not divisible by 400. For instance, the years 1800 and 1900 were not leap years but 2000 was. My only question for the people who decided we needed this extra day, why put it in February? Sure, it’s already a short month and it could use an extra day but I think a lot of people would prefer the extra day in a month when the weather is nice!
Rusty Dawkins grew up in Gordon and graduated from Gordon High School in 1991. He then spent a couple of years at Chadron State College before finishing his meteorology degree at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is married to his wife Melanie and has two children, Bryce and Gillian. He loves to travel and golf, so if you see him out and about, be sure to say hello!