Tuesday was the winter solstice. It’s the day proper winter starts not meteorological winter which started at the beginning of December. So today we had the shortest length of daylight hours of the year. The sunrise and sunset times as shown below. Just for interest I've added some sunrise and sunset times for Wednesday too so you can see how much the times change each day.
Sunrise and Sunset times for Ossett, West Yorkshire.
I've seen posts regarding how little difference there is in temperatures between summer and winter solstice this year. It got me thinking so I've produced a little table showing the figures for the last six years. It’s definitely true as there was only 1°C difference in the high temperature for the June solstice compared with this December’s. But looking at the tables it’s a combination of a cold June and very mild December. Thinking back to June nothing would grow properly would it? Young plants were struggling to grow on the plot and we were in need of some warmer weather to get them growing.
Certainly December has been very mild but I'm not sure how much of advantage that is to gardeners. I'm sure we’ll have a cold snap before we get through to spring. That’s when any tender plants will be damaged by frost but of course the good news is any pesky bugs still living on our plants over winter might well be killed off.
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I'm surprised how different your sunrise and sunset times are to ours here near Bristol. Sunrise today at 8.14am and sunset at 4.05pm. You're right about the likelihood of a cold snap before it's all over. Won't be a bad thing though. I hope you and Sue have a wonderful Christmas.
ReplyDeleteWe'll probably get a cold spell once it's time to start sowing seeds again. Have a great Christmas CJ.
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