Shortest Day Complexities
Monday, December 21, 2009 at 5:42PM 
Today is the day of the winter solstice, which means its the day when the maximum height of the sun in the sky is at its lowest point of the year. It also means that today is the shortest day of the year. What it doesn’t mean is that today has the earliest sunset and the latest sunrise.
Nope, our winter sun is a lot more complicated than you might think. If you live on the 40th parallel, your day of earliest sunset was around December 8 and your day of latest sunrise will be around January 5. Since I live much farther north than 40˚, the date of the earliest sunset and the date of the latest sunrise are both closer to December 21, but neither falls on that date. You can read the explanation for this sun phenomenon here.
So it’ll continue to be darker a little later in the morning for me, and for you, too, if you live in the northern hemisphere. Still, I’m really excited about the 7 seconds more daylight I’ll have tomorrow.
Reader Comments (2)
Keep the heat turned up, and the soup on the stove.
I'm excited about that extra daylight, too! Definitely moving toward spring. That's a good move in my book.