and set at 3:12 p.m., resulting in less than six hours of anemic daylight. The difference is more stark in frigid Helsinki, Finland, where the sun will rise at 9:23 a.m. Much higher in latitude, Madrid, Spain, still logs in a respectable nine hours and 17 minutes of daylight during the winter solstice. People in balmy Singapore, just 137 kilometers or 85 miles north of the equator, barely notice the difference, with just nine less minutes of daylight than they have during the summer solstice. What places see and feel the effects of the winter solstice the most?ĭaylight decreases dramatically the closer you are to the North Pole on December 21. You might also try the conversion tools at, or. To check the timing where you live, the website EarthSky has a handy conversion table for your time zone.
Because of time zone differences, the solstice will technically fall on Wednesday in parts of East Asia. Here are some examples of when 15:59 UTC will be for various local times in places around the world. That's almost six hours later than last year's time. If you want to be super-precise in your observations (and who doesn't want to be?), the exact time of the 2021 winter solstice will be 15:59 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on Tuesday, according to and Farmers' Almanac. The time that the solstice occurs shifts every year because the solar year (the time it takes for the sun to reappear in the same spot as seen from Earth) doesn't exactly match up to our calendar year.
The solstice usually - but not always - takes place on December 21.