Are you ready for Summer? AccuWeather predicts more 90-degree-and-above days than last year’s, when frequent precipitation held back daytime high temperatures in the Northeast, mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes.
When is the first day of Summer? The Summer Solstice or “June Solstice” 2019 occurs at 15:54 UTC (or 11:54 AM EDT) on June 21. This solstice marks the longest day of the year (the most daylight) in the Northern Hemisphere. Early dawns, long days, late sunsets and short nights. The sun is at its height each day as it crosses the sky. But in the Southern Hemisphere, it is the shortest day – winter begins.
The word “solstice” comes from Latin solstitium – from sol (sun) and stitium (standing), reflecting the fact that on the solstice, the sun appears to stop moving in the sky as it reaches its northern or southernmost point. After the solstice, the sun appears to reverse course and head back in the opposite direction.
The Summer Solstice occurs in June in the Northern Hemisphere and in December in the Southern Hemisphere.
Ancient cultures knew that the sun’s path across the sky, the length of daylight, and the location of the sunrise and sunset all shifted in a regular way throughout the year. They built monuments, such as Stonehenge, to follow the sun’s yearly progress. Today, we know that the solstice is an astronomical event caused by the Earth’s tilt on its axis and its motion in orbit around the sun.
All locations north of the equator have days longer than 12 hours at the June solstice, while all locations south of the equator have days shorter than 12 hours.
Even with the longer days during the summer solstice, many of us work and live in spaces where we do not get enough “natural” light. But with recent technological advances in artificial lighting, we can now light a room with a system that “mimics” daylight. Arborlight, Inc. was granted a patent on 13 February 2018 for the “world’s first Daylight Emulation lighting system” (U.S. 9,894,729).
References:
The Old Farmer’s Almanac
EarthSky.org
Wikipedia
AccuWeather
Aborlight LinkedIn
