Mid-winter’s Day
On Tuesday June 22 the sun rises at Maleny at 6.38am and sets at 5.04pm, giving 10 hours and 27 minutes of official daylight. This is our shortest day of the year when the sun is directly overhead at the Tropic of Cancer. Known as the Winter Solstice or Mid-winter’s Day, it is when a ‘night’ lasts for 24 hours on all places within the Antarctic Circle,
The question often asked is if the winter season in Australia covers the months of June, July and August so why isn’t our mid-winter’s day in July?
In many countries of the world the seasons are defined by the solstices and the equinoxes. For example our winter season is from June 21 to September 22.
The reason our mid-winter‘s day s near the beginning and not the middle of the season is due to the lag of the season – the time-lag between the movements of the sun and temperature and response of the land masses and oceans. In northern Australia the four seasons are of little relevance because the length of day doesn’t vary a great deal and at midday the sun is always high in the heavens. Here they have’ wet’ and ‘dry’ seasons – the monsoonal climates.