Saturday, December 21, 2013

Happy Winter Solstice 2013


Washington Post: Winter Solstice 2013: Shortest day of the year, but sunset already creeping later
By Justin Grieser
December 20 at 10:52 am
Winter may just be getting started, but those looking forward to a bit more daylight have not much longer to wait. This Saturday is the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, marking our shortest daylight period and longest night of the year.

At 12:11 p.m. EST on December 21, the sun appears directly overhead along the Tropic of Capricorn, at 23.5 degrees south latitude. With the Earth’s north pole at its maximum tilt from the sun, locations north of the equator see the sun follow its lowest and shortest arc across the southern sky. For the next six months, the days again grow longer as the sun spends more time above the horizon.
Accuweather has more on how this happens in Winter Solstice - The Day of Least Light.


For more on the science of the day, click on the link in the headline of the Washington Post article; that has lots of fun facts!

2 comments:

  1. Happy Winter Solstice!

    Regards, www.lonelyreload.com (A Growing Teenager Diary)

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    1. And a Happy Solstice, to you, too! I'll let your comment stand, since you link to an on-topic post and don't appear to have any commercial interest.

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