Solstice 2022: Shortest Day Of The Year Is Long On Rituals

(CTN News) – During the past six months, Solstice the Northern Hemisphere has seen shorter days and longer nights. However, that’s about to change.

Winter solstice 2022 is Wednesday, December 21, the shortest day of the year and the official start of winter (for most of the world). It has fascinated people for thousands of years how this works.

Let’s start by looking at how the solstice works and how it is timed. Next, we’ll explore some ancient traditions and celebrations from around the world.

Winter solstice science and timing

During the winter solstice, when the sun is directly overhead at the Tropic of Capricorn, it is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

Approximately 10% of the world’s population lives in the Southern Hemisphere. In Argentina, Madagascar, New Zealand and South Africa, the December solstice marks the longest day of the year and the beginning of summer.

December 21 usually marks the solstice, but not always. There can be a shift in the date of the solstice because the solar year (when the sun appears at the same place as seen from Earth) does not exactly coincide with our calendar year.

According to EarthSky.org and Farmers’ Almanac, the winter solstice in 2022 will occur at 21:48 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on Wednesday. It’s almost six hours later than last year.

The following table shows when 21:48 UTC will be at various local times around the world. Winter solstice will fall on Thursday, December 22 because of time zone differences.

The time in Tokyo is 6:48 a.m. on Thursday
It’s 4:48 a.m. in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Thursday
• New Delhi: 3:18 a.m. Thursday
• Istanbul: 12:48 a.m. Thursday
• Jerusalem: 11:48 p.m. Wednesday
• Copenhagen, Denmark: 10:48 p.m. Wednesday
• Charlotte, North Carolina: 4:48 p.m. Wednesday
• Winnipeg, Manitoba: 3:48 p.m. Wednesday
• San Francisco: 1:48 p.m. Wednesday
• Honolulu: 11:48 a.m. Wednesday

Website Earth Sky contains a handy time zone conversion table that can be used to determine the time where you live. There are also conversion tools available at Timeanddate.com, Timezoneconverter.com, and WorldTimeServer.com.

How does the winter solstice affect different places around the world?

On December 21, the amount of daylight decreases dramatically the closer you are to the North Pole.

The people of balmy Singapore, just 137 kilometers from the equator, barely notice the difference. They have just nine minutes fewer daylight hours than they do during the summer solstice. There is pretty much a 12-hour day all year long, give or take a few minutes.

Even though Paris is located much higher in latitude, it still enjoys an impressive eight hours and 14 minutes of daylight.

Norway’s frigid Oslo, where the sun rises at 9:18 a.m. and sets at 3:12 p.m., resulting in less than six hours of daylight. Is there a sun lamp available?

There will be just three hours, 54 minutes and 31 seconds of very weak daylight for Nome, Alaska, residents. However, this is downright generous when compared to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. As it lies within the Arctic Circle, it will never see a ray of sunshine.

How does the winter solstice occur?

Our seasons change due to the tilt of the Earth’s rotational axis. Each hemisphere experiences winter when tilted away from the sun and summer when tilted toward the sun as the planet rotates around the sun.

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