As far as East Coasters are concerned, with 26 inches of snow falling on Long Island in yesterday’s blizzard, winter has already arrived. For that matter, here in Michigan, you’d be hard put to convince anyone otherwise when it comes to the practical sense of the word winter. Look outside and what do you see? Snow, and lots of it. Sure looks like winter to me, and has looked that way for a good month.
But today at 12:57 a.m. EST–less than three hours from now as I write these words–winter will become official. That is the precise minute of the winter solstice, the time when the sun reaches its southernmost position over the Tropic of Capricorn and begins its journey back north. From then on, the slow but steady pilgrimage toward spring will be underway.
In my hometown of Caledonia, according to my sunrise/sunset calendar, the sun rose today at 8:09 a.m. and will set at 5:11 p.m. EST. That gives us nine hours and two minutes of daylight on the shortest day of the year. From this point, we’ll struggle a bit trying to add those extra, tiny increments of daylight. The sun will set a little later each day, but it will also continue to rise a little later for a while, nibbling away another four minutes of dawn until January 7. That’s the day when, after tipping above the horizon at 8:13 a.m. for seven days straight–the sun will finally rise at 8:12. We’ll have added a minute in the morning and, by then, 14 minutes in the evening–a total of 15 minutes. By the end of January, we’ll have gained 58 minutes of daylight.
Gray and cold though today may be, with a light snow falling steadily outside my deck door, winter solstice is nevertheless a welcome landmark. Its frozen arrival portends the lengthening of light and the certainty of spring. And this one comes with a visit from my brother Patrick, whom I haven’t seen in several years. It’s wonderful to see him; a more welcome Christmas gift I couldn’t ask for.
Whatever the winter brings–and with a strong El Nino in force, it could be a doozy for many–today is the time when the forces that conspire to create snow, ice, and bitter cold begin to lose their logistics. Winter’s batteries may presently be charged to the max, but the countdown to storm season is about to begin.
