Break out the fall cliches: sweaters, baths, stew, candles, hayrides, pumpkin spice everything...

You won't even notice it.

Under cover of darkness as you lie in bed tomorrow morning -- most likely asleep -- the sun will cross the equator going from north to south officially marking the switch from summer to fall.

It will be 5:44 am Pacific time.

"The fall equinox is a real transition window," explains Environment Canada meteorologist Ken Dosanjh.

"The fall-like conditions we've already been experiencing for a couple of weeks -- less daylight and cooler temperatures -- becomes more pronounced."

The Okanagan's entree to fall, however, won't be all that drastic.

"The remainder of September looks pretty good with quite a bit of sun and temperatures a few degrees above normal," said Dosanjh.

"Even October looks like it will have temperatures a little above normal."

Normal this time of year in the Okanagan is daytime maximum temperatures in the high teens, yet we'll be enjoying the low-20s with at least the next four days mostly sunny with 20 to 24C.

Before we get the peculiarities of astronomical and meteorological fall and the quirks of the fall equinox, let's have fun with fall cliches.

Quick, how many can you come up with in 30 seconds?

We've got: sweater weather, fall colours, piles of leaves to romp in, football season, hayrides, apple picking, scarecrows and hay bales, baths, candles, stew, lighting the fireplace (or at least the fireplace channel on TV), back to school, curling up with a good book, Halloween, Black Friday sales and, of course, pumpkin spice everything.

Speaking with Dosanjh about fall is a little strange.

Meteorologists and Environnement Canada adhere to meteorological seasons, the tidy quarterly increment of September, October and November as fall for easier monthly weather data collection and comparisons.

As such, weather guys believe autumn started Sept. 1, so we've already been in it 21 days.

Astronomical seasons follow Earth's orbit around the sun, which also puts the seasons at roughly three months each, but the start and end dates tend to be the 21st, 22nd or 23rd of the month.

Thus, fall runs from Sept. 22 to Dec. 21 this year.

To get all technical, there are only two equinoxes a year -- the start of fall and the start of spring -- when the Earth's orbit around the sun sees the Earth's axis (the imaginary line from the North Pole to the South Pole) is at a rotation point which is neither toward or away from the sun.

The day of the equinox, which is Latin for 'equal night,' there's supposed to be exactly 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of dark night.

However, celestially it doesn't quite work that way.

Take the Kelowna example of Sunday's sunrise at 6:45 am and sunset at 6:54 pm.

It actually works out to 12 hours and nine minutes of daylight.

However, that's because while the sun actually crossed the horizon 12 hours apart for sunrise and sunset, we continue to see the sun thanks to the trick of refracted light through the atmosphere.

To further muddle the situation, it actually remains light a little longer with what's called civil twilight, which works out to light from 6:13 am to 7:26 pm in Kelowna tomorrow.

One thing that's for sure, is that the amount of daily light will get a little shorter every day until we hit the shortest day of the year on winter solstice Dec. 21 and then it gets gradually lighter every day.

Reduced light and cooler temperatures can put is in a funk.

The key, rather than be melancholy about the shift from summer to fall, is to embrace the new season.

Get out and exercise and enjoy when it is light and revel in those aforementioned cliches to gawk at the fall colours, don a sweater, start a new book, draw a bath, light a candle and sip a pumpkin spice latte.