Happy belated solstice everyone! As you probably know, this day is significant as the shortest day of the year. I guarantee you the further north you live the more significant this day is for you. Here in Fairbanks it is more important than Christmas for many. Right as most folks start to feel completely nuts from lack of enough sun, the sun starts coming back.
Fortunately we are roughly 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle which means we don't experience total darkness on solstice. We do, however, only get about 3.5 hours of sunlight. It rises around 11:00am and sets around 2:30pm. While not seeing the sun for much more than a lunch break for a few months might drive more folks than normal to heavy drinking it has some plus sides too. When the sun comes up it stays at a low angle in the sky, going from sunrise straight into sunset... beautiful! The pictures in this post were taken on my way home last weekend at 2:30pm. Also, on either side of the solstice the length of time the sun is in the sky changes by about 6.5 minutes per day which means every ten days we gain an hour of daylight (or lose that much as we approach the solstice).
The other upside of such short sun exposure, besides a zero chance of sunburns, is that with the longer darkness we have a better chance of seeing the aurora
borealis and get to enjoy extended starry nights.
With all that said, I'm sure glad we have made it over the solstice hump. Welcome back sun!
The other upside of such short sun exposure, besides a zero chance of sunburns, is that with the longer darkness we have a better chance of seeing the aurora borealis and get to enjoy extended starry nights. 