How do days get shorter

The summer solstice , the longest day of the year, will fall on Monday, 21 June. The day sees many celebrations — with people flocking to Stonehenge in a nod to its pagan traditions. Pagans used the summer solstice as a market for planting and harvesting crops , celebrating the God and Goddess coming together. On the summer solstice, we enjoy the most daylight of the calendar year: the sun reaches its most northern point in the sky in the Northern Hemisphere at around noon.

After the summer solstice, the days start getting shorter — the length of daylight starts to decrease. The second solstice of the year, the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere is the day with the shortest period of daylight and will take place on Tuesday, December 21, Sirf News Style. Privacy Policy. About Sirf. Why Donate. Contact Us. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits.

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Analytics Analytics. During the summer solstice, the Northern hemisphere experiences its longest period of daylight in a year. During the winter solstice, it sees the longest night of the year. So while the equinox marks the date when the day and night are equal, the solstice marks the biggest difference between the day and the night.

The sun is at its highest point in the sky in the middle of the day during the summer solstice. This is reversed during the winter solstice — at noon the sun is at its lowest of the year. In northern areas this change is extreme, and some areas can experience continuous daylight or night time for months. Every September, the Northern hemisphere officialy enters autumn, and from that point on, each day has one less minute of daylight, culminating in the winter solstice.

It might not seem like a lot, but over the course of a month it adds up to half-hour of lost daytime. Then, as in most of the US, you might be setting your clocks back an hour for the end of daylight savings time. Understanding why days are shorter in autumn is one thing, but another thing is dealing with its practical consequences. We get long stretches of daylight and late sunsets during the summer, but all that is set to change.

Adjusting can be tough, but there are ways to make it easier. Fermin Koop is a reporter from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Home Other Feature Post. Why do days get shorter and darker with autumn? It's time to leave behind the sunny and longer days of summer by Fermin Koop.

January 22,