The darkest afternoon—our earliest sunset—is upon us. For most of us, the darkest day of winter will feel like December 8.
Whoa, hold on. That must be a mistake. Isn’t that a bit early?
No, mistake. It’s a strange, reliable yearly sequence. First comes the earliest sunset on December 8 this year, if you live around latitude 40 degrees.
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Then comes the Winter Solstice on December 21. This is the shortest day, with the fewest minutes of sun. But by then, in typical US, European, and Canadian locations, the Sun is already setting three minutes later.
The next milestone is the darkest morning with the latest sunrise. This is the first week of January. If you’d like to check off further milestones, you could add the statistically coldest week of winter (somewhere between January 16 and 25), and then winter’s midpoint, which used to be Groundhog Day but now falls two days later.
Why doesn’t the earliest sunset coincide with the solstice on December 21? It has to do with how the Sun syncs up with our clocks and calendars, and with our tilted axis, and with the fact that Earth’s path around the sun is an ellipse and not a circle, and that we therefore speed up and slow down in our orbit. Earth is closest to the Sun on January 2, which makes us whip around it at our year’s fastest speed during December, January, and February.
This in turn makes our solar day—the moment from when it’s highest in the sky one day to when it’s highest up the next day—longer than average right now. With Earth currently moving faster in its orbit, we have to spin slightly more than one full turn to precisely face the Sun the next day. Result: Our actual solar days are now 24 hours and 30 seconds long. Meanwhile our clocks dumbly and steadily still use the “average” value of 24 hours on the nose. This produces a discrepancy.
As a result of this and one or two other factors, the real Sun and what our clocks say are a bit out of sync. Bottom line: If you’re winter-weary even though winter hasn’t even started yet, you can celebrate. Since more of us are Sun-aware in the afternoon than in the early morning, in practical terms the darkest day of winter is next Tuesday.
By Wednesday, December 9, afternoons will already be brighter. Sure, it’s just a few seconds at first. But we’ll take it.
(If you live in Australia or anywhere in the southern hemisphere, ignore everything I just said. Better yet, reverse it.)
Bob Berman
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In all of this, don't we need to account for the moon (technically the suns reflection off the moon)? The New moon falls on December 14th, so that night will have less light than the days surrounding it.
I have always had a profound response to this time of year, and go into hibernation in varying degrees, depending on the day. This morning my energy is very low...I just read your article about December 8, and sort of smiled, knowing I had less energy for some reason. Thank you for your insights. I just let myself stay in bed late, and dozed off and on. Today I will be winding up slowly to do the chores of the day. And choosing rest instead of illness...
So, when the Almanac or other folks say the winter solstice is the darkest day of the year, is that wrong? Or, is it a different way of looking at it? In other words, the shortest day of the year (the solstice) is NOT the darkest day of the year? Thanks for clarifying.
Yes, Chris, the solstice has the longest night and shortest day and lowest noonday sun. But the darkest afternoon (earliest sunset) is Dec 7 or 8, and the darkest morning (latest sunrise) is the first week of January.
I think they were pointing out how some people's perspective might indicate a different "darkest day". As in how for some it might seem that an earlier sunset is the darkest day since they might be sleeping in past sunrise on that day. Or how for some who get up early might note that it is longer until the sun comes up. But it may just simply be that, yes, the day with the least amount of daylight hours would indeed be the "darkest day".
However, I sense what you are looking for is something very similar to the question that was on my own mind and which is the reason I am here as well; that being that there may be some other atmospheric or geometric phenomena that would decrease the amount of visible light to something less than the actual numeric time that the sun is visible on the shortest day of the year. To my knowledge, there isn't anything that would cause the amount of photons to be present to be less than there should be except things like mountains or weather.
Mr. Berman : I would like to see this article become an annual (upadated) reprint.
In fact, it deserves its own permanent Almanac page with any few adjustments table for latitude.
