What you Need to Know About the Winter Solstice, Shortest Day and Longest Night of the Year, in a Nutshell
Even so, mornings will get a bit darker until early January, but we’ve already gained a few minutes of evening light. After Dec. 21, daylight will start increasing even as winter’s coldest days still lie ahead.
On Wednesday the winter solstice, the first day of astronomical winter in the Northern Hemisphere, a dangerous winter storm and punishing Arctic blast will occur, but if you want more sunlight, celebration: The winter solstice is the shortest day and longest night of the year, and on December 21, the first day of astronomical winter, the Northern Hemisphere will experience a dangerous winter storm and punishing Arctic blast. Longer, brighter days are on the way.
The 4:48 p.m. Eastern time arrival of the second and final solstice of 2022 across the eastern third of the United States is near.
On the winter solstice, the sun appears directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, a line of latitude 23.5 degrees south of Earth’s equator. At this moment, the sun’s daily southward movement in the sky appears to pause, and the sun rises and sets at its southernmost points on the horizon.
On December 21, the low angle of the sun in the northern hemisphere forces you to cast your longest midday shadow of the year (assuming no clouds).
The reason for the occurrence of solstices, equinoxes and seasons is that the Earth’s axis is tilted by about 23 5 degrees, which causes each hemisphere to receive different amounts of sunlight throughout the year.
As the planet spins around the sun, each hemisphere receives a unique amount of sunlight, according to a 2019 article by Capital Weather Gang
The Northern Hemisphere gets less direct sunshine in December because the sun appears lower in the sky. On the other hand, Dec. 21 in the Southern Hemisphere is the first day of summer and the longest day of the year.
On the days of the equinoxes, the length of day and night is nearly equal everywhere on Earth.
Meteorologists define winter as the coldest three calendar months of the year, running from December 1 to February 28. The winter solstice marks the beginning of astronomical winter.
On the winter solstice, daylight hours are determined by latitude: As you move closer to the North Pole, the amount of time the sun is above the horizon decreases. In Miami and Houston, the sun is up for more than 10 hours on Dec. 21, whereas in Seattle and Minneapolis, it is up for less than 9 hours.
On the winter solstice, Washington, D.C., has 9 hours 26 minutes of daylight, with sunrise at 7:23 a.m. and sunset at 4:49 p.m., according to timeanddate.com.
In Anchorage, the sun only shines for 5 hours 28 minutes during the short winter days, whereas in Fairbanks, sun light lasts for only 3 hours 41 minutes. The Arctic Circle is the line where the sun no longer rises on the winter solstice.
On the winter solstice, the shortest period of daylight isn’t the day of the latest sunrise or the earliest sunset. For example, Washington’s earliest sunset occurred at 4:45 p.m. on Dec. 7, while its latest sunrise is scheduled for 7:27 a.m. the following day.
The reason for the misalignment is that Earth is tilted on its axis and we orbit the sun in an ellipse, not a perfect circle. As a result, our 24-hour clocks become slightly out of sync with the length of the “solar day,” which is the amount of time it takes the sun to rise from one day to the next. Although people measure time in 24-hour increments, the “solar day” is not exactly 24 hours long.
During the December solstice, when the sun appears near the same point in the sky for a longer period of time than usual, the sun rises and sets a bit later than usual. The lag time, which starts to accumulate over several weeks, causes sunrise and sunset times to shift by a bit each day, even as the months continue to get shorter until December 21.
The earliest sunset and latest sunrise in most of the Lower 48 occur two weeks before and after the solstice, respectively. In the northernmost portions of the United States, the solstice occurs around the winter period, and the earliest sunset and latest sunrise occur on or near that date.
Morning hours will gradually grow darker until early January, but we’ve already gained a couple of minutes of evening light. In spite of winter’s coldest days still to come, daylight will start to increase after December 21.
