December 23

With a side of handsome:

Pay attention, class – longer days ahead!

From The Old Farmer's Almanac – Saturday, December 21, was the Winter Solstice. and yesterday was the first full day of winter. The word solstice comes from the Latin words for "sun" and "to stand still.” In the Northern Hemisphere, at the winter solstice, the sun’s path has reached its southernmost position. The next day, the path advances northward. However, a few days before and after the winter solstice, the change is so slight that the sun’s path seems to stay the same, or stand still. The sun is directly overhead at "high-noon" on Winter Solstice at the latitude called the Tropic of Capricorn.  In the Northern Hemisphere, the solstice days are the days with the fewest hours of sunlight during the whole year. Although it is now officially winter, it was hard to notice, since the temperature was 68 degrees at 5:45 a.m. yesterday morning in Washington, DC. But the best news is that each and every day from now until late June will have just a bit more sunlight than the day before.

The winter sky: