First day of spring is near. What it means for temperatures near you.

After a brutal winter for much of the country, spring is finally in the air.

Spring officially begins on Friday, March 20, at 10:46 a.m. ET, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory.

It marks the spring equinox, or the astronomical start to spring. The spring equinox occurs when the Earth's axis is tilted neither toward nor away from the sun, resulting in equal daylight during the day and darkness at night.

This year, the start of spring caps off winter weather that impacted parts of the country in vastly different ways. In the Northeast, frigid cold temperatures and massive snowstorms struck over the last two months. But out West, scorching high temperatures have been feeding a drought.

Despite the weather whiplash many Americans faced, meteorologists reported that winter across the country was overwhelmingly warm.