The course of the sun in the southern hemisphere makes the summer
days in
Australia short and the winter
days long. With up to about 14:40 hours there is the
longest daylight in December.
Sunrise and sunset in the most important cities of Australia.
| City | Canberra |
|---|
| Sunrise | 05:54 am |
|---|
| Sunset | 08:23 pm |
|---|
| Hours of daylight | 14:29 h |
|---|
Though the winter solstice marks the shortest daylight period in the Northern Hemisphere, it's never the day of the latest sunrise or earliest sunset. D.C.'s earliest sunset (4:45 p.m.) is usually around Dec. 7, while our latest sunrise (7:27 a.m.) isn't until Jan. 5, according to timeanddate.com.
Here in Australia we start the seasons on the first of the month. That means that in the Australian summer, the southern hemisphere is tilted more towards the sun. More sunlight equals warmer weather. The opposite happens in winter.
The seasons in the Northern Hemisphere are the opposite of those in the Southern Hemisphere. This means that in Argentina and Australia, winter begins in June. Seasons occur because Earth is tilted on its axis relative to the orbital plane, the invisible, flat disc where most objects in the solar system orbit the sun.
solstice(Noun) One of the two points in the ecliptic at which the sun is furthest from the celestial equator. This corresponds to one of two days in the year when the day is either longest or shortest. Etymology: From solstitium, from sol + stitium (as in English solar and resist), from sisto, both from roots.
Summer solstice (June 20 or 21): longest day of the year, marking the start of summer.
Alice Springs, Northern Territory, AustraliaIt also gets between nine and 11 hours of sun per day, even in the winter. That's a whopping 3,456 hours of sunlight. Suffice to say, hats and sun cream are necessity, even if you do wake up to frozen ground.
The day after the winter solstice marks the beginning of lengthening days, leading up to the summer solstice in June. In the Southern Hemisphere, the opposite is true. Dawn comes early, and dusk comes late. The sun is high and the shortest noontime shadow of the year happens there.
Sunrise & Sunset for Sydney
| Day | First light | Last light |
|---|
| Sun 27 | 5:15am | 8:37pm |
| Mon 28 | 5:16am | 8:38pm |
| Tue 29 | 5:17am | 8:38pm |
you'll see listed on the calendar pages for December 2020 (page 174), among the astronomical data, that the earliest sunset for 2020 occurs on December 7th.
And for the week or so after that, it will continue increasing at the slightly slower pace of about 2 minutes and 7 seconds per day. In fact, this time period around the vernal or spring equinox—and actually peaking at the equinox—is the time of year when the number of daylight hours is growing the fastest.
In January, each day gains between 90 seconds and two minutes of daylight. In February, about two and a half minutes of daylight are added each day. As the sun moves higher in the sky from March through June, there are about two more minutes of daylight per day.
The Northern Hemisphere, including India, will witness the longest daytime of the year on Sunday, June 21. The sun will reach its highest position in the sky, and the shadows will disappear at noon if you are in Ujjain, Gandhi Nagar or essentially any place along the tropic of cancer on this day.
76 days of midnight sun between May and July greets travelers in Northern Norway. The further north you go, the more nights of midnight sun you get. During the summer months, you can experience up to 24 hours of sunlight above the Arctic Circle, which means more time to enjoy the sights and make new discoveries.
Located over 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Tromsø, Norway, is home to extreme light variation between seasons. During the Polar Night, which lasts from November to January, the sun doesn't rise at all. Then the days get progressively longer until the Midnight Sun period, from May to July, when it never sets.
Even after the solstice, the sun in winter is so low that more energy escapes from the earth than is absorbed from the sun, so the earth/hemisphere continues to cool, even though days are slowly getting longer. It's not until roughly a month after the solstice that average temperatures reach their lowest point.
The winter solstice was immensely important because the people were economically dependent on monitoring the progress of the seasons. Starvation was common during the first months of the winter, January to April (northern hemisphere) or July to October (southern hemisphere), also known as "the famine months".
