Why does the winter solstice mark the beginning of winter, and not the center?
Why does the winter solstice mark the beginning of winter, and not the center?
I'd expect the shortest day of the year to also be the coldest, with the coldest season of the year spreading out equally on both sides of it.
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Ever notice during the summer the hottest part of the day is usually around 3 or 4 in the afternoon instead of at noon? Same thing, just on the order of months instead of a day.
That seems to be specific to where you are
If the days start cooling down at noon for you, you’re closer to the outlier set than me.
It's a timezones vs actual sun time thing. In Spain near me they are like 2 hours away from their actual sun time so you can even add that to the lag you said. I'm sure it's the other way around somewhere in the world, specially in medium and big countries
That's a little pedantic. The exact time isn't really important, just that it is not exactly at midday, it's a few hours after midday.
That's the thing though. Spain's time zone is so far ahead of where it should be, for most of the year the hottest part of the day really is around noon. When stupid-pretendy-time is in effect (which a quick google tells me is 7 months of the year), solar noon is at 10 am in Spain, which means clock noon is at 2 pm, roughly the hottest part of the day.
There's also the fact that local factors have an effect. Closer to the equator, the hottest part of the day tends to be earlier. Humidity can have an effect, as can the amount of concrete and asphalt versus earth and trees.
I spent about a week in Toledo, Spain for a wedding a few years ago during the summer. We were taking siestas on our second day there and eating dinner at 10pm.
It was actually quite enjoyable operating on the Spanish time-conventions.
The thing is, the time zones aren't necessarily related to the lifestyle. A siesta at 1 on the current clock is identical to a siesta at 11 on a more natural clock. But either way you have a siesta when the sun is near its peak.
No, but being in Spain during the summer lends itself to doing as the locals do. I couldn't have given less of a care about what time zone I was in.
Time zone doesn't affect "midday"
Midday is when the sun is at its highest point. The hottest part of the day is pretty much always a few hours after midday.
Of course there are exceptions, there's almost always exceptions for literally everything and it's kind of useless pointing it out.
Midday is 12:00. If you want to refer to solar noon, call it solar noon.