Why is tomorrow the shortest, darkest and dreariest day of the year?

Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

Ok, the bad news is tomorrow's winter solstice is the shortest day of the year with a meagre eight hours and five minutes of daylight in Kelowna.

That works out to the sun rising at a tardy 7:53 am tomorrow and setting at a premature 3:59 pm.

Ouch.

The winter solstice, when the sun pauses above the Tropic of Cancer, is precisely at 1:20 am Saturday, Dec. 21 and marks the official start of winter.

Because NowMedia's coverage areas are at different latitudes, daylength times vary accordingly with 8:09 in Penticton, 8:02 in Vernon, 7:58 in Kamloops, 8:18 in Victoria and 7:23 in Prince George.

The good news is that after tomorrow's winter solstice, every day will get ever so slightly longer until we hit maximum daylight on the summer solstice of June 21.

That's also the first day of summer (astronomically speaking) and for Kelowna means a glorious 16 hours and 21 minutes of sunlight that day.

We're mentioning the seasons based on astronomy because they are different from meteorological seasons.

For instance, astronomical winter in the Northern Hemisphere runs from tomorrow to spring equinox's March 20.

The exact timing varies every year according to the astronomy of the position of the sun in relation to the earth.

For tomorrow's winter solstice, the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer and the earth, on its axis with 23.5 degree tilt, is positioned its farthest away from the sun.

Meteorological seasons are much more tidy, divided into three month chunks that make it easier to collect and compare weather data.

For instance, meteorological winter in the Northern Hemisphere is Dec. 1 through Feb. 28 or 29 (don't get us started on leap years).

Environment Canada meteorologist Armel Castellan adheres to the meteorological seasons.

"But, certainly, past climate records recognized the winter and summer solstices and the fall and spring equinoxes," he said.

"They are good for tracking general trends, temperatures and snowfall."

So, Castellan had a look back to see that the warmest winter solstice in Kelowna was 10.6C in 1900 and the coldest was minus 29C in 2022.

This may be a lot of geek speak you're not particularly interested in.

But, you're probably interested in tomorrow's weather.

This winter solstice is way warmer than seasonal norms in all of NowMedia's coverage areas.

For instance, in Kelowna tomorrow will be cloudy and 3C with periods of rain and Sunday will also be cloudy and rainy with 2C.

Generally, this time of year, Kelowna has more typically wintery weather with daytime highs of minus 2C and overnight lows of minus 8C.

Tomorrow, Vernon, Penticton, Kamloops and Victoria are getting similar to Kelowna.

Meantime, Prince George will be 1C with sun.

The mild run continues through Christmas and Boxing Day.

"That's going to impede the Christmas or winter solstice with snow that we might expect," said Castellan.

The weather starts to cool on Dec. 27 and 29 and we could have a return to seasonal norms by New Year's Eve.

_{Thumbnail photos by Aaron Burden on Unsplash}