Today is the day we get the shortest day and longest night. This has interested me since I was a little kid. On the farm we played outdoors and were out at night. We didn't have electricity so the night sky was bright. We also new that when we played outside after supper it got darker every day.
When I got someplace with a daily paper and the records of sun up and sunset, the solstice was more interesting.
So today our sunrise was at 8:42 and sunset at 4:24 for a total of seven hours and 42 minutes of sun.
What I find interesting is that sunset on Dec.8 was 4:22 and on Dec. 21 4:24. So the afternoons have started to get longer. Sunrise on Dec 8 was at 8:31 and on Dec. 21 was 8:42. The sun is still coming up later.
Our average high temperature in Dec is -4 C and average low -16 C.
So I always think of the winter solstice as going up a hill and you reach the top. Now it's down hill and much easier.
