The solstice starts at 4:48 a.m. UTC on December 22 (which is 11:48 p.m. ET on December 21), the moment when the Northern Hemisphere is pointed at its farthest distance from the sun. Temperatures are expected to be 10 to 20 degrees higher than average in the eastern USA and Canada, and the majority of Europe as well.
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But despite the warm outlook those in the weather business know that the winter solstice means some of the coldest days of the season are yet to come.
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The days that follow on from the winter solstice will gradually get longer, leading up to the summer solstice in June.
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Winter in the northern hemisphere (and summer in the southern half of the planet) is the shortest season of the year. It marks the longest day of the year in the Southern Hemisphere.
What’s a solstice and why is my day going to drag on?
The term solstice means “sun stands still”. Celebrations are done with feasts, festivals and holidays around the December solstice celebrated by cultures across the globe.
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Schaefer will host the Winter Solstice concert at St. John the Divine, an annual event. There are 365 days in a typical year and 366 in a leap year.
It certainly has felt more like spring lately, but we haven’t even started winter, officially!
The Druids – the priests of the ancient Celts – used evergreen trees, holly and mistletoe as symbols of everlasting life during winter solstice rituals. The North Pole is tilted furthest from the Sun, delivering the fewest hours of sunlight to the northern hemisphere, and the Sun appears at its lowest on the horizon.
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The sun made a brief appearance through clouds as druids, pagans and revelers gathered in the center of Stonehenge, England, for the winter solstice ceremony. In ancient days, the winter solstice marked the day when all of the cattle was slaughtered, so they did not have to be fed over winter. The prehistoric man-made formation dates back to 3000 to 2000 BC and features boulders aligned perfectly with the sunset on December 22.
