Shortest Day of the Year 2024 in Canada
The Winter Solstice occurs at 04:23
The days become shorter as a result of the earth tilting away from the sun (at least in one hemisphere at a time). This causes the sun to appear lower in the sky and spend less time above the horizon, meaning the day is shorter.
Solstice sunrise, sunset and day length in Ottawa
Sunrise
07:41
Direction: 124°First light: 07:06
Sunset
16:23
Direction: 237°Last light: 16:57
How long is the shortest day of the year?
The Winter Solsitice is both the shortest day of the year and also the longest night. The good news is that from this point on the days will begin to get longer until Midsummer's Night in about 6 months.
Whilst there will be more daylight going forward the same cannot be said for the temperature. This is just the beginning of winter* and temperatures will continue to drop for well over a month. The phenomena is known as seasonal lag where, despite there being more energy from the sun, the latent temperature of the Earth makes the air temperature slow to respond.
*Beginning of Astronomical winter. Meteological winter begins December 1 / June 1 (depending on hemisphere).
Winter Solstice Dates
The shortest day can occur on December 20, 21, 22, or 23. However, as you can see below the 21st is by far the most common. A December solstice on the 23rd is once in a hundred years occurrence, and a December 20 solstice is even rarer.
| Year | Date | Time (Solstice) |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 21st December | 05:06 |
| 2021 | 21st December | 11:02 |
| 2022 | 21st December | 16:51 |
| 2023 | 21st December | 22:30 |
| 2024 | 21st December | 04:23 |
| 2025 | 21st December | 10:06 |
| 2026 | 21st December | 15:53 |
| 2027 | 21st December | 21:45 |
| 2028 | 21st December | 03:23 |
| 2029 | 21st December | 09:17 |
| 2030 | 21st December | 15:13 |
The date of the equinoxes and solstices varies because a year in our calendar does not exactly match the length of the astronomical calendar.
The word solstice comes from Latin 'solstitium' meaning "the sun stands still". This is because the sun's path north or south stops before reversing direction.