When is the winter solstice and the shortest day of the year? | UK News

Are you tired of it getting dark at 4pm? Well after Saturday the days start to get a little longer.

The first day of the weekend – December 21 – marks the winter solstice, which brings with it the shortest day and longest night of the year.

Daylight will last seven hours and 49 minutes in London.

From Sunday 22 December, the days start to get a little longer in the Northern Hemisphere, every single day until the end of June.

The increase in daylight will be minimal at first, just a matter of seconds per day, but will steadily grow until daylight is extended by three minutes each day in March, according to weather forecasting website Almanac.

The exact amount of brightness achieved depends on where you are in the world.

What is winter solstice?

Also known as Christmas, the solstice is a celebration of light and the symbolic rebirth of the sun.

Scientifically speaking, it is the time of year when the Earth tilts most towards or away from the sun.

The tilt means that the northern and southern hemispheres get very different amounts of sunlight – and days and nights are at their most unequal.

During the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, the top half of the Earth is tilted away from the sun, creating the shortest day and longest night of the year.

Meanwhile, at the summer solstice, the northern hemisphere faces the sun, creating the longest day and shortest night of the year. This solstice falls between June 20 and 22.

However, the dates of the equinoxes and solstices are not fixed due to the Earth’s elliptical orbit around the Sun.

What is an equinox?

During the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, the Earth’s axis and its orbit are aligned, so both hemispheres receive the same amount of sunlight.

On the equinox, day and night last almost the same amount of time – hence we get the expression, which means comes from two Latin words meaning equal and night.

While the solstice starts summer and winter, the equinox marks the start of spring and autumn.

Why do the dates vary?

The date of the equinoxes and solstices varies because a year in the modern Gregorian calendar does not exactly match the time it takes for the Earth to complete one orbit around the Sun.

This means that the timing of the equinoxes and solstices slowly drifts away from the Gregorian calendar, with the solstice occurring about six hours later each year.

Eventually the delay becomes so great that it falls on another date.

To adapt the calendar to the Earth’s orbit, a leap day is introduced every four years. When this happens, the date of the equinoxes and solstices changes back to the previous date.

How to celebrate in Great Britain and Ireland

The winter solstice is celebrated all over the world and has been for thousands of years.

It is one of the main occasions when English Heritage allows people near the stones that make up Stonehenge.

In previous years, huge crowds of people have gathered at the site on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire to watch the sunrise – which typically happens just after 10am.

It is believed that the solstice has been celebrated at Stonehenge for thousands of years.

The public also gathers at the ancient site of Newgrange in Co Meath, Ireland.

The monument – which consists of a large circular mound with an internal stone passage – is illuminated each year when sunlight enters through a small opening above the entrance known as the “roof box”.

The chamber is illuminated for 17 minutes, in a phenomenon that members of the public flock to see first hand.

In Penzance, Cornwall, the solstice is marked by the annual Montol Festival.

First organized in 2007, the festival is a revival of traditional Cornish midwinter customs and traditions that date back hundreds of years.

It consists of people dressing up in costumes and masks, performing and, when it gets dark, a procession through the main town.

While on the south coast, the Burning the Clocks parade will take place in Brighton. The event consists of a parade where the locals carry homemade paper and arrow lights through the town and finally throw them on a bonfire on the beach.