Today is the Winter Solstice in the Northern hemisphere. Many people never really consider how far North Scotland and the UK really are. Well I live just a few km South of 56N parallel which puts me further North than Moscow and many parts of Alaska, Newfoundland, Labrador and bits of Nunavut. There are plenty of European countries like Sweden, Norway and Finland that are further North but thanks to the Gulf Stream washing over our coasts, it never gets too cold here in Winter.
To put some context on how early it goes dark, here are 2 photos showing the setting sun yesterday whilst out “dogging”. It was a very nice sunny day.
Anyway, from now on the days are getting longer But there is an odd effect in that dawn still gets later a minute or two every day for the week. It just goes dark later giving longer days. You can see that by looking at the sunrise/sunset times and lengths of day times on this webpage Sunrise and sunset times in Edinburgh, December 2025
A useful refresher indeed. I am not sure my school geography teacher was up-to-speed on all this. And for many, it was also a long time ago.
Of course, students of Scottish geography will know that Lerwick, the main town on Shetland, is further North than any of the 3 Scandinavian capitals Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm.
For the Northern hemisphere, those interested in @GM4LLD’s perceptive observation about the asymmetry of the darkest morning being around 28 Dec (and the darkest afternoon being around 14 Dec) should Google ‘The Equation of Time’. Put simply, Solar time and the time on your watch undergo a ‘merry dance’ throughout the course of the year.
One of the first programs I wrote was a solver for The Equation of Time for my TI59 calculator back in 1979. I rode past a sundial on my bike ride to school so having the ability to correct sundial time was useful. Or I could have looked at the high accuracy Quartz watch on my wrist.
I still have the TI59 and the magnetic card holding the program. The TI59 works fine but the cards have absorbed atmospheric moisture into the magnetic material and so they no longer read or write
But there is an odd effect in that dawn still gets later a minute or two every day for the week. It just goes dark later giving longer days. You can see that by looking at the sunrise/sunset times and lengths of day times on this webpage Sunrise and sunset times in Edinburgh, December 2025
