The Northern Hemisphere has reached its shortest day of the year, with Winter officially beginning at 4:20 a.m. on Saturday.
The shortest daylight duration of 2024 will be 9 hours, 2 minutes, and 3 seconds today in Lansing. Sunrise at 8:05 a.m. will be followed by a sunset at 5:07 p.m., both of which should be visible for a change.
From here, we’ll begin adding a few seconds of daylight per day until the end of the month, gradually increasing to a few minutes per day by late January. We’ll keep doing that until we reach the Summer Solstice on the opposite side of the Sun in June.
The Winter Solstice is the point in Earth’s orbit around the Sun when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted the farthest away from the Sun. Earth is slightly uneven in space, inclined at an angle of approximately 23.5 degrees.
That tilt is what causes seasons to change throughout the year, as the Northern and Southern Hemispheres alternately point toward or away from the Sun.
As the Northern Hemisphere moves farther from the Sun, our half of the earth receives less sunlight, causing the atmosphere on this side of the world to cool.
In contrast, the Winter Solstice here corresponds to the Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, which is oriented toward the Sun. In Australia, South America, much of Africa, and Antarctica, Christmas is celebrated throughout the summer.
Spring is about three months away!
