Why days are shorter in winter

However, the first day of a season as usually defined on a calendar falls near the same dates as these astronomical events. In the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice occurs around December 22; summer solstice, June 22; spring equinox, March 21; and fall equinox, September Amy Dusto is a high school science teacher and a freelance writer. She has contributed to Discovery. Calendar Year vs. Earth Orbit. How Many Hours of Daylight in Summer?

Sun Intensity vs. In spots farther north, the days will be markedly shorter. For example, Glasgow, Scotland will experience approximately seven hours of daylight; Fairbanks, Alaska will only experience a meager four hours of daylight, as the sun will barely peek over the southern horizon there. There are even places that will see no sunrise at all, like Barrow, Alaska. For the polar regions, the solstice will leave them in darkness for more than 24 hours. Why does this happen? The Earth is tilted; it does not face the sun upright, instead our planet lies at a This is one of the reasons why the seasons on Earth seem to be reversed between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

When the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the sun, residents of areas on that part of the planet have summer while residents below the equator are experiencing winter.

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?

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