The length of the sun’s day-long arc above the horizon is therefore shortest, so the sun is up for the least time, and its rays are most slanted. The sun’s mid-day altitude on the solstice is the lowest of the whole year. On that day the sun is at the southernmost point of its yearly journey (seen from Earth) through the stars of the zodiac. Our shortest day of the year is the solstice, December 21. As the days pass we will keep gaining minutes of evening light. Have you noticed? Tonight (December 16) the sun will set almost two minutes later than it set on the 6th. The evenings have been getting brighter ever since. That was the evening of our earliest sunset. This year, here in Kentucky, our darkest evening fell on December 6. The darkest evening of the year is in early December. Robert Frosts’ poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” tells of him pausing to watch snow fall, far from any house, at a spot that was.
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