Yippee it's Winter Solstice here in the Great White North! For those of you with normal daylight and darkness, winter solstice is the shortest day of the year...we have about 3 1/2 hours of daylight after losing a few minutes of daylight each day since June 21st (our longest day of the year - the summer solstice)

Now we will slowly gain daylight a few minutes each day...and work our way towards summer!

 

Quote :winter solstice is the shortest day of the year...
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He meant *the day with the least amount of sunlight*, it's around 8 hours,I think.

All days are 24 hours long

 

Mil1ion,
While technically your are right, all days are 24 hours long, we don't usually call "night" (the time of darkness) day.

Yes I meant we have only 3 1/2 hours of daylight during December 21st

 

I met a guy from Ecuador at a motel once. He was telling me how the days were the same length where he came from, (the hours of light..). It got dark about 8:30 or so, year around. The temp was about the same, too, (Hot). They just called winter, "The rainy time."

I live about 5 miles from the 45th Parallel, so I guess I get the best of both worlds. It gets light about 7:30AM and dark about 4:30PM right now.

 

Don't we have one day that is 23 hours long and one day that is 25 hours long???

 

Rats! I missed the Yule celebration...

 

Ah the winter solstice is my second favorite day of the year, the summer solstice being my favorite. My big thing to so is to wake up before dawn and use the entire day to my advantage. It is one of the few days I always take off from work on.

Heavnbound, how long is the day[light] on June 21st where you live?

 

On June 21st we have 24 hours of daylight. Actually, where I live in Fairbanks the sun rises on June 20th and doesn't set at all till the 23rd. So for three days (sometimes more) we have daylight round the clock.

 

Thus the term, "Land of the Midnight Sun"

 

The summer solstice always makes me sad because I know it'll be a full year until we have such a great day again. I HATE the dark months. There's no time to get anything done and all I want to do is hibernate. I wake up at 5:30 or 6 and work in the garage for an hour or two, then work on the truck when it's light for about an hour and then go to work. I get done at 3 or 4 and it's already dark out. But from here on out I can count on the days getting longer.

 

yeah I got to visit Alaska once, we worked on this church from 8-5 then'd go fishin' after we got done working
I'd fish for a little and look down at my watch and it was like 2am felt like 7 I sware. by the time we'd go to bed, we had to be up in 2hours to get back to work. did that for two weeks. prolly the least sleep I got in my life. I could't live there during the summer I'd stay up doing stuff till it killed me

 

As long as I could hunt Moose and Bear all hours of the day. I would be a happy camper. But hunting season for them is probably in the shot time frame for day light. Oh well, it was a good thought.

Tom

 

That is so cool. I have GOT TO get up there some time.

 

Exactly. And for all you baseball fans, on June 21st our local farm team the Goldpanners play the Midnight Sun game...a full baseball game starting at 10:00 pm and playing without lights!

Pretty cool!

 

Yeah ivanribic, this daylight thing affects different people in different ways. Some folks like the varying hours of daylight and darkness and cope with it just fine. Others like yourself find it hard to deal with. They sell "happy lights" for those with S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder) that is suppose to simulate daylight. Don't know how good they work, but at least it's a recognized problem nowadays.