Weather Wise: Why do we have a Leap Day?

Tyler Ryan explains the reason behind the every 4th year tradition

COLUMBIA SC (WOLO) – So I think that most of us agree that one trip around the sun takes 365 days, right?  Well, most of us would be wrong.  One trip around the big ball in the sky is actually 365.2422 days, which means that we are actually .2422 or five point eight hours over each year.

Now that doesn’t sound like much, but if we extrapolate out one hundred years, it would make us 24 days off every century from what the Romans had planned.

This can be fixed simply by adding a day every four years, right?  Not quite.  If we take the 365.25 or more technically 365.2422, it still leaves us ab out 11.2 minutes each year, which equals an 18 hour difference…so here is what we do:  If we start counting at the start of a new century, but it falls on a leap year, we don’t count it, unless it is divisible by 400…clear as mud, right?

So with this little dose of athematic, it makes the average 365.2425, which leaves us with a shift of .0003 or 29.5 seconds too much each year, just 1 day off after 3,333 days.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Tyler Ryan is an award winning television and radio personality, weather forecaster, writer, investigative journalist, and professional emcee.  He appears daily on ABC Columbia’s Good Morning Columbia, as well as hosting the syndicated radio program Carolina Cares on the South Carolina Radio Network, and the iHeart Radio Network.  Tyler also regularly appears as a criminal expert and journalist on regional and national crime based programs like Snapped and Killer Couples.  You can contact him directly via EMAIL Or on the socials: Tyler’s Instagram  // Tyler’s Facebook