Winter Solstice
December 21st, 2011 at 12:01 am by Bill Steffen under Bill's Blog, Weather
<–click to enlarge – (graphic from UCAR and the Univ. of Michigan). Tomorrow (Thurs.) at 12:30 AM we have the Winter Solstice. So, today and tomorrow are the shortest days (least amount of available daylight) in the Northern Hemisphere and the longest day in the Southern Hemisphere. The word “Solstice” is Latin for “sun stands still”. Today the sun is directly overhead at solar noon at a latitude of 23 degrees and 26 minutes south latitude, a line called the Tropic of Capricorn. In Grand Rapids we have nine hours of daylight today (sunrise 8:11 AM, sunset 5:12 PM). There is less daylight the farther north you go. At Sault Ste. Marie (sunrise 8:18 AM, sunset 4:35 PM – note the difference is mainly in the sunset time), they get 8 hours and 17 minutes of available sunlight. North of the Arctic Circle, the sun stays below the horizon all day long. At Barrow, Alaska the top tip of the sun won’t climb above the horizon until Jan. 22 and at the North Pole not until the Spring Equinox in March. The gain in sunlight is slow at first. In the next month we gain only 34 minutes of daylight (4 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening), with a more rapid increase in daylight around the Spring Equinox. Temperature lags the position of the sun by around one month, so the coldest temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere on average occur around January 22. Happy Winter to all!
very informative and greatly insightful work Bill, I look forward to reading your blogs!!! I appreciate the great work you put into doing you life’s work
Its Officially Winter, well in a few hours it’ll be official! Welcome to a brutal Winter…get the snow blowers, plows, and shovels ready!!
Is this the Winter where the snow takes its time to get going but once it starts, we get dumped on again and again? Right now, no! Soon, a pattern change?
I’m still blown away we’ve had this little amount of snow. The half an inch we received last night was pretty, and my son was excited. Wondering why I put my snow tires on this year
It’s official…time for the never ending lake effect to begin.
I have to admit that even though the coldest weather is yet to come – I’m always excited about the days growing longer again!! For ME, the worst part of winter is the lack of sun. I don’t think I’d last too long in northern Alaska