Winter Solstice

Sunset at frozen Pudasjärvi lake, Finland (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Today’s going to be a dark day in Pudasjärvi, Finland, where this photo was taken.  Within the next 12 hours, the sun will reach its southern solstice(*).

Pudasjärvi is so far north (at 65.3619° N, 26.9859° E) that during the winter solstice the sun is up only 3 hours and 30 minutes, rising at 10:27am and setting at 1:58pm.  At high noon it will be only 1.5 degrees above the horizon — barely risen — and to make matters worse the moon is New so it won’t provide any light at all.

The day will be brighter here in Pittsburgh with 9 hours and 17 minutes of sunlight — as soon as the heavy clouds open up and allow the sun to shine.

Starting tomorrow the days will get longer.

Things will get better. I promise!

(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)

(*) The solstice is at 6:03pm Eastern Standard Time, 1:03am Eastern European Time.

4 thoughts on “Winter Solstice

  1. Kate, my grandmother who was from Hungary, used to say that after today, the sun will “take one rooster step” each day, signifying the longer days. I bet that sounded really cool in Hungarian!

  2. Ha! guess my grandmother wasn’t so wise… I decided to google this in case I found it in Hungarian. and found this from a business website!
    ….In the westerly most parts of Ireland, Gaelic speakers traditionally talk of this imperceptible measure in terms of a rooster’s step: ‘the days are lengthening by a rooster’s step.’

    You can delete both comments! 🙂

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