First Alert Weather In-Depth: A special astronomical notation for the weekend

ROCHESTER, NY – Western New York is well into meteorological winter as we’ve already seen plenty of wintry weather over the past few weeks. However, there is a special astronomical notation that comes up on the December calendar. It’s the official arrival of the winter season! The winter solstice arrives at 4:20 Saturday morning.

This is the time when the sun reaches its lowest point above the horizon (29 degrees). So measured in terms of daylight, it is the shortest day of the year. And because of that fact, we then measure the smallest amount of surface heat from the sun. The low sun angle is also important because it produces more reflectivity from the atmosphere and most of the limited solar radiation does not penetrate our stubborn cloud cover. This reduced mixing of the lower atmosphere is another feature of cloudy skies.

And forward in time, our sky looks even brighter! From the second day of winter, sunsets start to get later and later (sunrises also get earlier). Over the next three weeks, extending to January 8th^thsunset will be 16 minutes later. And before you know it, the vernal equinox will be several months away on March 20th^th. At that time, the angle of the sun goes all the way up to 47 degrees above the horizon. And the trend continues into the summer solstice on June 20^th At that time, the solar angle reaches its highest point at noon at 70 degrees.

This time of year, patience brings a brighter outlook!