HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The summer solstice has arrived but what exactly does that mean for us here in North America? First and foremost, let's talk about how we're able to experience the four different seasons: winter, spring, summer, and fall. The Earth is tilted at 23.5° and that tilt of the Earth is what gives us the seasons as the Earth revolves around the sun.
We have four major transitions throughout a year: the winter solstice, the vernal equinox (spring), the summer solstice, and the autumnal equinox (fall).
We have two equinoxes and two solstices that occur within a calendar year. Equinoxes are where we experience equal amounts of daylight and darkness where solstices are where we experience the change of the length of daylight and darkness. The summer solstice is the "longest" day of the year where the winter solstice is the "shortest" day of the year.
The summer solstice for North America is when the Earth is tilted TOWARDS the sun, giving us our warmest months we'll see on average. Surprisingly, as the first day of the summer solstice means the longest day and longest night in the Northern Hemisphere, it's the exact opposite in the Southern Hemisphere. While we're experiencing the summer season here in North America, South America is experiencing their winter, even though the solstices/equinoxes are the same dates around the world.
The first official day of summer begins Thursday, June 20, 2024 at 3:51 PM CST. Our sunrise will be 5:33 AM and our sunset will be 8:02 PM, giving us 14 hours, 29 minutes, and 15 seconds of daylight. The mark of the summer solstice is also the longest amount of daylight we'll see within a calendar year, meaning that after June 20, our sunsets will start to slowly become earlier in the afternoons.