12/21/2023

Winter Solstice Arrives This Evening

Today is the shortest day of the year

On Thursday, we turn the corner toward longer days and a bit more sunlight. Dec. 21 is the winter solstice, the shortest day and longest night of the year in Earth’s Northern Hemisphere. On Friday, we'll start gaining a few seconds of daylight again.

The 2023 winter solstice is Dec. 21 at 10:27 p.m. Eastern time. The exact time and date of the solstice changes slightly each year. It most often falls on Dec. 21, though sometimes occurs Dec. 22.

On rare occasions, the solstice can happen as early as Dec. 20 or as late as Dec. 23,according to timeanddate.com. To avoid confusion between different time zones, the official time of the solstice is based on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is five hours ahead of Eastern time. By that standard, a Dec. 23 solstice last occurred more than a century ago — in 1903 — and will not happen again until 2303. An early Dec. 20 solstice will happen sooner, in the year 2080.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.