The Winter Solstice

The winter solstice marks the shortest day and longest night of the year. In the Northern Hemisphere, it occurs when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, which is located at 23.5° south of the equator and runs through Australia, Chile, southern Brazil, and northern South Africa. This year, the Northern Hemisphere winter solstice will occur at 8:58 am MST on December 21, 2020. For a complete listing of the dates of the winter and summer solstice's and spring and fall equinox's, check out this site: https://www.weather.gov/media/ind/seasons.pdf A pinhole camera (no lens and a single small aperature) can be effectively used to document the change in elevation of the sun during the year. The image below is a solargraph made with a pinhole camera, in which the path of the sun as it crosses the sky is captured for an extended period. It was made in Tijeras, and depicts the period from the summer solstice (highest streaks) to the winter solstice (lowest streaks) in 2009.

Image courtesy of Becky Ramotowski

The Solstices, Equinoxes and Seasons

We all know that the Earth makes a complete revolution around the sun once every 365 days, following an orbit that is elliptical in shape. This means that the distance between the Earth and Sun, which is 93 million miles on average, varies throughout the year. During the first week in January, the Earth is about 1.6 million miles closer to the sun. This is referred to as the perihelion. The aphelion, or the point at which the Earth is about 1.6 million miles farther away from the sun, occurs during the first week in July. This fact may sound counter to what we know about seasons in the Northern Hemisphere, but actually the difference is not significant in terms of climate and is NOT the reason why we have seasons. Seasons are caused by the fact that the Earth is tilted on its axis by 23.5°. This can be seen graphically in the picture below.

There are two times of the year when the Earth's axis is tilted neither toward nor away from the sun, resulting in an equal amount of daylight and darkness at all latitudes. These events are referred to as equinoxes and occur near March 21st (Vernal Equinox) and near September 22nd (Autumnal Equinox). At the equator, the sun is directly overhead at noon on the two equinoxes.