Happy solstice! As one who doesn't much like Christmas & New Year I've taken to celebrating today.
The winter solstice occurs (in the northern hemisphere) when the axis of the earth's rotation is tilted away from the sun by the maximum amount. This happened at 4:19 GMT this morning to be exact.
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| Winter solstice |
The solstice causes the shortest amount of daylight. At my location at 56 degrees north the sun rose at 8:45 GMT and will set at 15:44 GMT giving 6 hours and 59 minutes of daylight. From now on this will increase.
This is midwinter but due to seasonal lag the coldest temperatures are yet to come. Seasonal lag is about a month so late January/early February is, on average, the coldest time of year.
Thus far winter here has not been bad. There were early frosts from the start of November but currently it is dull, dry & fairly mild (8C/46F) Zero chance of a white Christmas. Certainly no problems with getting about on the bike so long as I wrap up.
This is midwinter but due to seasonal lag the coldest temperatures are yet to come. Seasonal lag is about a month so late January/early February is, on average, the coldest time of year.
Thus far winter here has not been bad. There were early frosts from the start of November but currently it is dull, dry & fairly mild (8C/46F) Zero chance of a white Christmas. Certainly no problems with getting about on the bike so long as I wrap up.
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| Winter scene |
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| The CBF is my transport at present |
Happy Solstice day. As a believer, you should book yourself a place for the solstice celebration at Newgrange (those stoneage people knew a thing or two about calendars: https://www.newgrange.com/) Heavy cloud messed things up for this years lucky few apparently. :-(
ReplyDeleteNever mind, there is always the old Jethro Tull song (Solstice Bells) to listen to.
Cas
www.oldireland.ie