When is winter? Forecasters in the Northern Hemisphere report what is known as meteorological winter from December 1st to the end of February. However, based on the Earth’s tilt and orbit around the sun, it will be from December 21, 2025 to March 20, 2026.
This is an astronomical winter, beginning at the winter solstice, when the days are the shortest of the year north of the equator, and ending at the vernal equinox (or “isonight”), which marks the beginning of spring.
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the sun is still
The summer solstice marks the point in the sky where the sun appears to stop moving southward and begin moving northward again in the sky. The summer solstice (Latin for “the sun stands still”) refers to the moment when the sun rises at its southernmost point on the horizon and sets at its southernmost point, as seen from the Northern Hemisphere.
At noon on December 21st, the sun will be above the Tropic of Capricorn. The Tropic of Cancer is a line approximately 23.5 degrees south of the equator, passing through Argentina, Australia, Botswana, Brazil, Chile, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Paraguay, and South Africa.
In the Southern Hemisphere, everything is reversed, and south of the equator it is the summer solstice. Because the Earth’s southern axis is tilted toward the sun, the southern hemisphere has the longest daylight hours and shortest nights of the year.
These extreme phenomena are most felt in the Earth’s polar regions. On the summer solstice, the sun does not rise at the North Pole nor set at the South Pole. (That’s why “the sun is still here”)
The winter solstice has long been celebrated in the Northern Hemisphere as the return of the sun, as it marks the sun’s lowest point in the sky, after which the days begin to lengthen. According to English Heritage, the most famous festival takes place at Stonehenge. Stonehenge is a 5,000-year-old structure in England that was built to coincide with the sun at the summer solstice.
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