Winter Solstice, aka first day of winter, December 21 – But what does that mean?

Today, December 21, 2024, is the first day of winter and it sure feels that way as a bitter cold artic airmass settled over the area last night dropping temperatures into the single digits.

Today will be the day when the least amount of daylight occurs in the northern hemisphere and the longest night time period will happen due to the northern pole being at its farthest angle away from the sun. This happens because the earth is tilted on its north south access. Because of this tilt, As the earth makes its way around the sun every 365 days, each pole will share equal time facing away from the sun, maxing out this distance on the winter solstice, and equal time leaning towards the sun, reaching its closest point during the summer solstice, also known as the first day of summer.

The 21st of December will have only 8 hours and 55 minutes with the sun above the horizon, compared to 15 hours and 27 minutes on the summer solstice, June 21.

On the calendar, We often think of the winter solstice as an event that spans an entire day, but the solstice actually lasts only a moment. Specifically, it’s the exact moment when a hemisphere is tilted as far away from the Sun as possible in its revolution around the sun. That exact moment happened at 3:21 Saturday morning.