For anyone who wants to officially welcome in winter, plan on going to bed late on Saturday night.
The Editors at The Old Farmer’s Almanac said the Winter Solstice: The First Day of Winter, arrives on Saturday, Dec. 21 at 11:19 p.m., marking the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere.
At the winter solstice, the Sun appears at its most southerly point. The Sun is directly overhead at “high-noon” on the solstice at the latitude called the Tropic of Capricorn. The next day, the path will begin to advance northward.
Think of it this way. The solstice brings the return of more sunlight. It only gets brighter from here!
The day of the winter solstice is the shortest day of the year, which means that it’s the day in which we experience the least amount of daylight.
Logically, it would make sense to assume that this is also the coldest day of the year, since we are exposed to less warmth-giving sunlight on this day than at any other time. But this is not true.
There are lot of factors that affect the temperature of a location on an given day, including altitude, snow cover, and large-scale weather patterns.
Snow cover, for example, partially blocks solar radiation from being absorbed by the Earth, which results in less heat being released and an overall drop in temperature. Because of these factors, it’s not possible to point to the same date year after year and call it the coldest day.
In the United States, the coldest days of the year tend to occur between mid-December and late January, so while it’s certainly possible that the coldest day of the year could also be the day of the winter solstice, that’s not usually the case!
(Editor’s Note—Information for this story came from the Old Farmer’s Almanac. For 12 months of weather forecasts and so much more, pick up a copy of the 2020 Old Farmer’s Almanac.)
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