{"id":8008,"date":"2019-12-03T11:19:44","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T18:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lpatucson.org\/lakeside\/?p=8008"},"modified":"2019-12-04T10:02:53","modified_gmt":"2019-12-04T17:02:53","slug":"winter-solstice-the-shortest-day-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lpatucson.org\/lakeside\/winter-solstice-the-shortest-day-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Solstice: The Shortest Day of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s common to think that the days get shorter in the winter, but the opposite is true. The shortest day of the year is the first day of winter, after which the days get progressively longer.<\/p>\n

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The first day of winter is called the winter solstice and it\u2019s an astronomical event which occurs this year in Arizona on Dec. 21<\/a> at 9:19 p.m., although it varies from year to year and can occur anywhere between Dec. 20 and 23.<\/p>\n

What is the Winter Solstice?<\/strong>
\nThe Winter Solstice is the day with the fewest hours of sunlight and the longest night. This year in Tucson we can expect just over 10 hours of daylight. In spots farther north, the days will be markedly shorter. For example, Glasgow, Scotland will experience approximately seven hours of daylight; Fairbanks, Alaska will only experience a meager four hours of daylight, as the sun will barely peek over the southern horizon there. There are even places that will see no sunrise at all, like Barrow, Alaska. For the polar regions, the solstice will leave them in darkness for more than 24 hours.<\/p>\n

Why does this happen?<\/strong>
\nThe Earth is tilted; it does not face the sun upright, instead our planet lies at a 23.5\u2070 angle. This is one of the reasons why the seasons on Earth seem to be reversed between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. When the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the sun, residents of areas on that part of the planet have summer while residents below the equator are experiencing winter. While on December 21 the U.S. will be having its shortest day of the year, countries like Australia, Madagascar, and Chile will be having their Summer Solstice, which is the longest day of the year, because more of the Southern Hemisphere tilts toward the sun this time of year.<\/p>\n

As the Earth orbits the sun, the amount of daylight<\/a> each day changes in response to both the angle and the location of the planet along that year-long track. The angle of the Earth means that the sun position in our sky moves along a north-south path throughout the year. The days shorten as the sun moves toward the Southern Horizon (moving toward the Winter Solstice) and lengthen as it moves northward again, reaching its zenith with the Summer Solstice.<\/p>\n