First Alert Weather In-Depth: A special astronomical notation for the weekend

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Western New York is well into meteorological winter since we have already seen plenty of winter weather over the last couple of weeks. However, there is a special astronomical notation that is coming up on the December calendar. That is the official arrival of the winter season! The winter solstice arrives at 4:20 A.M. on Saturday morning.

This is the time year when the sun reaches its lowest point above the horizon (29 degrees). So in terms of daylight, it is the shortest day of the year. And because of that fact, we then measure the smallest amount of surface heating from the sun. That low sun angle is also important because it produces more reflectivity off the atmosphere and most of that limited solar radiation does not penetrate our stubborn cloud cover. This reduced mixing of the lower atmosphere is another function of overcast skies.

And moving forward in time our skies are looking even brighter! Starting on the second day of winter the sunsets start getting later and later (sunrises are also get earlier). Over the next three weeks, extending out to January 8^th, the sunset will be 16 minutes later. And before you know it, in several months the spring equinox will arrive on March 20^th.  At that point, the sun angle goes all the way up to 47 degrees above the horizon. And the trend continues into the summer solstice on June 20^th  At that point the sun angle reaches its highest point at noon at 70 degrees.

This time of the year patience brings a brighter outlook!