Tomorrow morning at 4:24 a.m. EDT, we will experience the Summer Solstice. Today and tomorrow are the northern hemisphere’s longest days, and consequently shortest nights. Spring ends and summer begins. Six months from now we will experience the winter solstice and our shortest days.
All of this is based on the fact that the earth’s axis of rotation is not perpendicular to the plane described by the earth’s rotation around the sun. Hence we have hot and cold seasons, long and short days. It is for this reason that the seasons in the north and south hemispheres are opposite.
The DrsC happened to be in Fairbanks, AK, on this day some 40+ years ago. At one a.m. I stepped outside the RV and could read a newspaper with ambient light. I didn’t tarry long as the mosquitoes were fierce. Good times.
Since Fairbanks is roughly 200 miles south of the arctic circle, the sun was barely below the horizon. There was enough twilight to read, if not entirely comfortably. In those years the haul road north of Fairbanks wasn’t open to tourists, I gather it now can be driven.
If you are in St. Petersburg, Russia, at this time of year locals will be celebrating the “white nights” and will be out and about after midnight. Of course, today’s wartime Russia may be less festive than when we last visited, during a peaceful interlude.
