#JuneSolstice: 2019’s shortest day and longest night is upon us

Today, Friday 21 June marks the day of the winter solstice, when we experience the shortest day and the longest night of the year.

Sunrise will be at 6:55am and sunset at 5:24pm.

The solstice is an astronomical event that happens twice, once in summer and once in winter, each year when the sun reaches its highest position in the sky as seen from the North or South Pole.

Solstices occur on 20 or 21 June and 21 or 22 December each year. During summer, the day of the solstice is the longest day of the year and during winter the day of the solstice is the shortest day of the year.

During June it is Summer Solstice in the Northern hemisphere, and Winter Solstice in the Southern hemisphere. Similarly during December it is Winter Solstice in the Northern hemisphere, and Summer Solstice in the Southern hemisphere.

To avoid any confusion, solstices are preferably referred as June Solstice and December Solstice. Winter Solstice is also known as ‘Hibernal Solstice’.

More interesting phenomena related to the solstices:

Solstice comes from the Latin words sol, meaning sun, and sistere, meaning to come to a stop or stand still.

Depending on who you ask, astronomers and scientists use the date of the June Solstice to mark the beginning of winter in the Southern Hemisphere and summer in the Northern Hemisphere. For meteorologists, on the other hand, winter began almost three weeks ago, on June 1.

Sunrise and sunset timings in your city

In the Southern Hemisphere, where this day marks the Winter Solstice, did you know the earliest sunset actually happens a few days before the solstice, and the latest sunrise occurs a few days after it.

This happens because of the imbalance between time measured using clocks and time measured by a sundial.

Days of all darkness or all light

The June Solstice is the only day of the year when all locations inside the Arctic Circle experience a continuous period of daylight for 24 hours.

Due to atmospheric refraction, however, the Midnight Sun is visible for a few days before and on the June Solstice from areas as far as 97 kilometers South of the Arctic Circle.

As one moves further North of the Arctic Circle, the number of days with the Midnight Sun increase.

What causes the midnight sun?

On the Antarctic Circle, there are 24 hours of complete nighttime on the June Solstice. Just as with the Northern Hemisphere, any location south of the Antarctic Circle has Polar Night several days before the June Solstice.

Information obtained from Time and Date.