The Holiday Season is upon us; a time for presents, family, food. But it's also time for a celestial shift too. And while the onset of winter happened just this past weekend, many researchers are questioning why Winter's cold caught a grip of Earth early this year-at least in the northern hemisphere, that is.
This past Sunday Dec. 21, at 23:03 UTC (18:03 Eastern U.S. time), the Winter solstice arrived, and with it a new season. Known to be the "shortest day of the year", it's on this day that the sun is lowest in its daily trip across the sky, and cuts at least a few minutes off of the path of its travel. Now, of course, it all sounds nice and dandy, but what does this winter solstice jargon mean for you and I?
For one, it foreshadows the less sunny days to come. In fact, the day of the solstice is the longest night of the year, which comes with the shortest day. But, for those who find themselves in the Southern Hemisphere, it's quite the "polar" opposite; Countries like Chile and South Africa experience the longest day in their calendar year. And this pattern will continue up until the summer solstice in June, providing the Northern Hemisphere with shrunken days and the Southern Hemisphere with comparatively diminutive nights.
And things are only going to get colder from here. From a climate front, the coldest day of the year is often recorded just a month after the winter solstice has occurred. It's in the solstice's infancy that we experience the shortest periods of sunlight, hence forth the dreary weather conditions that will reign in the New Year and the snow storms on their way.
But unfortunately for those around the Atlantic Ocean or those more inland of the northern nations, this year has already been plagued with bad seasonal weather - far worse than what is expected for early December. In fact, just last week the New England territory experience storm Damon with several feet of snowfall and sleet. But these locations could, theoretically speaking, see even worse winter episodes to come-all facilitated by the lingering presence of our warming sun.
