Expect longer days, more light, but forget Christmas being white
Winter solstice brings trend toward more daylight though it won’t be noticeable for several weeks
You probably won’t notice it, but today will be a little longer and brighter. We endured the least amount of daylight yesterday as winter officially arrived and the solstice meant our part of Earth was tilted as far away as possible from the source of heat and light.
Today’s improvement will be barely measurable, but it’s a snail’s slide in the right direction.
“It will only be a few seconds more of daylight,” said Environment Canada meteorologist Bobby Sekhon.
“For us, the shortest day of the year was Friday, when the sun rose at 7:53 a.m. and the sun set at 3:58 p.m. Today, the sunrise will again be at 7:53 a.m. and sunset will be 3:59 p.m. Effectively, both days are really short with only eight hours and six minutes of daylight.”
We’ll gain a few extra seconds of daylight every day as we approach the new year, but it may not seem like it.
“It’s interesting that even though Friday was the shortest day, with a 7:53 a.m. sunrise, the sun won’t rise on Christmas Day until 7:55 a.m. While sunrise will get slightly later for a few days, the small gains will be made with sunset. The sun will set at 4:01 p.m. on Christmas Day.”
This may all seem like splitting hairs, and it is, but daylight is so important to us. We covet it and plan our entire lives around it. It makes us feel better, even elated. Daylight in winter can be glorious if accompanied by the sun and blue sky.
However, those days tend to be few and far between in the Okanagan when cloud covers the valley and winter daylight is nothing more than a dull grey.
That’s why we talk about the weather and daylight as if obsessed while holding a stop watch.
Conversely, on radiant June 21, summer solstice, the sun will rise at 4:49 a.m. and set at 9:10 p.m. for 16 hours and 21 minutes of daylight.
That’s eight hours and 16 minutes longer than yesterday’s shortest day.
Now that we know we don’t get much daylight on the 25th, will it at least be a white Christmas? Probably not.
“The Okanagan may get a dusting of snow tonight and tomorrow as a low-pressure weather system comes in,” said Sekhon.
“But it likely won’t stick around with the high of 2 C forecast for Sunday. The forecast for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is cloudy with highs of zero and lows of -2 C, but no snow.”
If you need snow, head for the hills.
Big White and Silver Star ski resorts both have snow bases of about 130 centimetres with a few centimetres of fresh white stuff on top and temperatures around -7 C.
A windstorm forecast for Thursday night and Friday morning in the Okanagan never really came to fruition.
Gusts of 80 km/h were feared but fell short with maximums of 70 km/h in Summerland, 65 km/h in Penticton and 54 km/h in Kelowna.
The wind didn’t down power lines or cause any real damage.
However, it was worse on the Okanagan Connector highway, which was closed on Thursday night because of blowing snow, poor visibility and black ice.