Love Our Arts & Culture Coverage?
You can help fund it!
Today the sun will rise in Seattle at 7:55 a.m.
Then, after offering us a mere 8 hours and 25 minutes of daylight, it will set, at 4:20 p.m.
This is how winter officially begins. But the the days only get brighter and longer from here on out. Read it and cheer.
Solstice!
Eli Sanders was The Stranger's associate editor. His book, "While the City Slept," was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He once did this and once won... More by Eli Sanders
Comments are closed.
Sign up for our newsletter for news recaps, updates, and more!
We'll send a verification code to %EMAIL%.
…except, y’know, winter solstice is tomorrow.
http://wiki.nasa.gov/cm/blog/NES_Teacher…
Rebekah, that link says the solstice is at 12:30 am Eastern Standard Time on December 22, which means it’ll happen at 9:30 pm on December 21 Pacific Standard Tune.
The world ends in one year.
TV Dinner – which doesn’t track, since sunset is at 4:20…hmm.
It’s the difference of less than a minute, usually, but that’s passing odd.
@1
Not exactly. The 2011 December solstice happens Thursday, December 22 5:30 UTC
In Seattle that translates to the December solstice happening at 9:30pm today.
http://earthsky.org/?p=2951
…which again, doesn’t quite track.
I guess I’m questioning my own source here, but doesn’t solstice fall on the same day for both time zones? It’s an event, after all – a different past of the website linked in this post (http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_One…) shows that sunset is at 5:30 today in NYC and 5:31 tomorrow. Wouldn’t that make it solstice day in NYC today?
It can be confusing. Try this:
(same source as before)
Yes, I understand time zones and how they work.
I guess what I’m not understanding is why NASA (and several other sources) list specific times for the solstice, and the eastern timezone’s is on the wrong* day.
*That is to say, not the shortest day of the year – there may be other solstice criteria I am not aware of.
Yes, the solstice occurs at a precise moment in time. From wookiepedia:
“A solstice is an astronomical event that happens twice each year when the Sun’s apparent position in the sky, as viewed from Earth, reaches its northernmost or southernmost extremes.”
6, No, the solstice happens at a specific point in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. It is not tied to time zones or dates. Where ever you are, at what ever time and date you happen to be in when the Earth reaches that point, it’s the solstice. It’s already tomorrow in New Zealand, and it will be their Summer Solstice at 6:30pm.
@ 8, 9:30 pm on December 21 in the Pacific Time Zone is the same moment as 12:30 am on December 22 in the Eastern Time Zone.
They don’t have the date wrong.
That said, where I live the solstice will happen at 10:30pm, but tomorrow will still be one minute shorter than today, making tomorrow the shortest day of the year. Astronomical phenomena don’t always conform to our clocks and calendars precisely.
@10 – Ah! Ok, that’s what I was missing! I have always heard solstice explained as the shortest day of the year (ie, earliest sunset), but that is obviously not accurate.
@11 – they have the date “wrong”, if like me (and most folks, I suspect) you understand/understood that solstice was not a precise moment but rather a specific day (see post title, etc). Pagan-minded folks tend to celebrate on the day, rather than the time IIRC.
@ 13, as you now know, it’s a moment and not a day. The “shortest day of the year” is a day and generally happens on the date of the solstice, but things get wacky when that moment happens in the middle of the night.
Sorry for the confusion, but it’s not NASA who was responsible for that.
Once again, Slog never fails to amaze me. How anything so simple could generate 13 comments is beyond me.
It’s undoubtedly going to be the shortest day of the year in Asia, where the solstice will happen in the middle of the day.
@ 15, and it wasn’t even one of Dan’s posts. You can automatically quadruple the comment count when he posts something.
According to timeanddate.com Sunrise and sunsets for Seattle.
*
Dec 21, 2011 Sunrise 7:55 AM Sunset 4:20 PM
Dec 22, 2011 Sunrise 7:55 AM Sunset 4:21 PM
Here in Baltimore, we are further south, so shortest daylight time is a bit longer. (You guys get longer daylight time on the Summer Solstice though)
@14 – certainly NASA isn’t responsible for that, but I thought it might be useful information for those on the east coast who might be looking to celebrate the shortest day of the year (which, as discussed, is not the same as the solstice).
@ 19, that’s still going to depend on where you’re at. Augusta, Maine, has identical sunrise and sunset times today AND tomorrow, and the total difference in daylight is less than one second. So they get TWO shortest days this year. (That’s per the same timeanddate.com site Rob used.)
MERRY SOLSTICE Everyone!
I shall sacrifice a goat in honor of Sol Invictus.
@20 – Clearly they must party twice as hearty.
Another interesting site, (if you’re geeky like me) a daylight map.
http://www.daylightmap.com/index.php
@ 24, that’s nice and realistic, but I always found this one visually pleasing:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/sunclock.…
@20 “has identical sunrise and sunset times today AND tomorrow”
This is impossible per physics.
Hail Tutane. Whoever that might be…from 101 yr old solstice news.
~~~~
And from 100 yr old solstice news 12/23/1911 NYT an explanation of sorts.
THE SHORTEST DAY A MEAN NINE HOURS; And 13 Minutes, Which Brought All Kinds of Bad Luck in the Way of Weather.
including His Solar Majesty, maximum declination and smallpox news.
@ 26, you tell it to timeanddate.com. (Notice I did point out the time difference as being less than a second – that will satisfy physics plenty.)
@15: I know, right? I thought my explanation at 2 would settle it. Didn’t realize we were dealing with a little more of a deficit.
Wait, soz, this Tutane and here’s a History of the Jewish New Year and Changes Made In Early Years from The Northern Indianian 1912
happy solstice bitches!!!
Any Pagan parties I should know about? I always miss the summer fun and May Day Pole dances.
In Spokane sunrise was at 7:33 AM / sunset will be at 3:58 PM. It’s night time by 4:30 these days. (Since we’re about 1/3 of a time zone to the east of Seattle, this kind of thing happens approx. 20 minutes earlier.) It’s nice to know that my yearly battle against becoming an alcoholic gets over the hump today. (Or tomorrow. Whatever.)
P.S. Those of us who never really thought about it much thank you, @10.
The Solstice occurs at 5:30 am GMT on December 22, 2011… which means just past midnight at 12:30 am on the East coast where I live in the early morning hours of December 22, 2011… and 9:30 pm there on the west coast, where y’all are, on December 21, 2011 which is today.
This does create a bit of confusion for us since our culture tends to celebrate holi-“days” rather than specific moments in time. So Happy Solstice West Coasters!!!! We East Coasters will celebrate tomorrow.