Friday, December 28, 2012

latest [winter] Sunrise...not on the solstice?


Event Date: January 5th
Time: 10:00 PM


Brief

   We are about two weeks removed from the December [winter] solstice, which marked the day that the Sun spent the shortest amount of time above the horizon from most northern latitudes; any variance was likely no more than a few seconds in difference, as some of these latitudes had their shortest day on a date before or after.   How so?  When the exact time of the solstice happens for a particular time zone.  That is, if it happens during the nighttime of a location instead of daytime, the shortest day may not match the date of the solstice.  I will provide a weblink here that may help further explain...after the popular Mayan info, of course...just read further!

What I will show for an image, instead of the solstice again, is the Sun in the morning for today's date, which indicates why I mention how long ago the December solstice was: the Sun rising at its earliest of the year, before rising later without the help of daylight savings ending.  


click on images to enlarge: courtesy of Starry Night Pro Plus, version 6.4.3, by Simulation Curriculum Corp.


Detailed

The Sun rises several minutes later in late October/early November before the time change.  This time, as a result of the Sun moving north instead of further south, meaning that we will start having a more gradual change over the next several weeks, than the hour jump that we get after a time change.  This happens each year naturally, as we talked about last month with the earliest sunset happening a little over two weeks before the December solstice.  In the summer, we have the earliest sunrise happen about a week before the summer solstice and the latest sunset happen about a week after the solstice.  Why?  Read this, and learn about a new topic: solar noon!

   Also, just to admit, the reason that I include these links rather than explain them myself, is for the following reasons: 
(1) They explain it much better than I can paraphrase. 
(2) there are too many specifics that paraphrasing (summarizing) is nearly impossible!

No comments:

Post a Comment