Now matter where you are on Tuesday December 22 at 4:48 am UTC — in Calcutta, India (above) or the frozen Yukon — you’ll experience the northern solstice. (NOTE that December 22, 4:48am is Universal Time! In Pittsburgh the solstice is at 11:48pm on Monday December 21.)
Here at latitude 40o North we think the solstice is a northern daylight event but it’s actually an astronomical event that happens everywhere on Earth at the same moment. At the North Pole there’s nothing to see; it’s been dark for a long time. In Australia they’re having their longest summer day.
In Pittsburgh we reached our shortest number of (rounded) minutes on December 17 — 9 hours and 17 minutes — and we’ll stay there, gaining only seconds per day, until December 26. Then on the last day of the year we’ll begin to gain a minute a day. At last!
Here’s good news for people with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): We’re going to turn the corner soon.
(photo by Biswarup Ganguly via Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)
The sun is setting a minute later but the sunrise will continue to get later for a while yet. Yes?
Carol, yes the daylight shifts toward the afternoon. Here’s more from my Solstice post in 2007: http://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/2007/12/21/winter-solstice/
My first office job 30 years ago was in downtown Cleveland. In winter, the sun would appear for a brief interval in late morning between one skyscraper and another. For three years in a row (until I moved), the sun hit the lowest level of windows in each on December 15th. I never could understand why it did that when the solstice usually happened on the 20th or 21st. Thank you so much for finally explaining it. Mystery solved!