Zarf Updates

I hereby raise awareness of Nighthawk's Solstice, which celebrates the day of the earliest sunset of the winter.

Of course the astronomical solstice is December 21st. That's the shortest day of the year, sunrise to sunset. But I never see sunrise, do I? For me, the shortest day is measured from when I wake up to sunset. Assume I wake up at some average time (nobody's business but mine), then my solstice is the day of the earliest sunset.

And very possibly yours too.

It's a bit tricky to pin down which day this is. There's a million ad-encrusted sites which show you sunset times, but they mostly work in minutes, which means there's a stretch of days which are "the earliest". It's the bottom of a long flat curve.

(Really, I'm not sure there is a sunset time which is precise to the second. I suppose I could sit on the Race Point shoreline by Provincetown and watch the last edge of sunlight disappear into Cape Cod Bay. Nah. Chilly.)

Anyhow, I polled a bunch of sources and decided that December 8th is close enough. It's the day I posted last year, anyhow.

As I said then:

Celebrate by drinking a mug of coffee (or cocoa or whatever) under weird fluorescent lighting while wearing a fedora. Or a red dress. Or a red fedora. (Linux support optional.)

Spread the word. Buy the cocoa.

Update, afterward

Several people point out (see comments below) that "earliest sunset" and "latest sunrise" are latitude-dependent. Whoops!

I confess I find this hard to visualize, since of course the astronomical solstice (when they're closest together) is the same day for everyone. (Modulo arguments about whether it's winter or summer.) But the charts are clear enough. Nighthawk's is December 6th in DC, November 30th in Miami, November 25th in Mexico City, etc. Oslo has a few days yet to go.

Well, in future years you'll have to do your own calculations. December 8th is shared by Detroit, Dubuque, Rome, and Tbilisi.

Me, I took a nice walk around the neighborhood and tried to catch the sunset. Didn't work; there are no good southwest sightlines, even up on the hill where the high school sits. Nice sky, though. Near froze my ears off when the wind came up.