Winter Solstice: 6 Facts

1. The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

This doesn’t mean that it’s the earliest sunset, because of the way humans record time compared to how nature moves in time (natural days are a bit more or less than 24 hours).

2. The winter solstice starts astronomical winter.

That is, astronomers consider the winter solstice the first day of winter, but meteorologists consider December 1 to be the first day of winter (in the Northern Hemisphere).

3. The Southern Hemisphere has its winter solstice in June.

This makes sense when you think about how the earth tilts as it moves around the sun.

4. At noon on the winter solstice, your shadow will be the longest it can be from natural sunlight.

I want to know who measured their shadow at precisely noon for an entire year and who replicated the experiment to find out which day has the longest shadows. Or maybe this is something that was concluded from math but never actually tested.

5. The winter solstice changes dates.

It is usually on December 21 or 22 in the Northern Hemisphere.

6. A solstice is not an equinox.

A solstice is the shortest or longest day of the year. An equinox is when the day and night are (more or less) equal.