Winter solstice 2022 in the UK: When is it and what is it?

But what is the winter solstice? And when is it? Here's everything you need to know.

What is the winter solstice?

The winter solstice is the point at which the path of the sun in the sky is farthest south.

At the winter solstice, the sun travels the shortest path through the sky resulting in the day of the year with the least sunlight and therefore, the longest night.

In the lead-up to the solstice, the days become shorter and shorter, then on the evening of the solstice winter begins, according to NASA.  

From then onwards the days become increasingly long leading up to the summer solstice and the longest day of the year. 

When is the shortest day of the year in 2022?

This year the winter solstice will occur on December 21 (with the exact moment occuring at 9.47pm in the UK).

This is its most common date, although it also occurs on December 22 every few years.

During the day, London is set to see just 7 hours, 49 minutes and 42 seconds of daylight, according to the website Time and Date.

The sun will rise at 8.03am and set at 3.53pm.

This figure gets even smaller the further you go north, so people in Edinburgh will see just 6 hours, 57 minutes and 37 seconds of daylight, with a 8.41am sunrise and 3.39pm sunset.

What does 'solstice' mean? 

The term "solstice" derives from the Latin word "solstitium", meaning "sun standing still". 

A woman twirls a hula-hoop as the sun rises at Stonehenge Picture: PA (Image: PA)

Astrologers say the sun seems to "stand still" at the point on the horizon where it appears to rise and set, before moving off in the reverse direction.

The earliest sunset

Logically you'd expect the earliest sunset to fall on the shortest day, but the earliest sunset actually occurs a few days earlier in the calendar, according to the Met Office.

And it's all to do with our clocks not quite mirroring the Earth's orbit.

True solar noon, the point at which the Sun reaches its highest point in the sky, occurs around 10 minutes earlier than when our clocks strike 12pm, and it is this discrepancy that means the sunset also arrives a little later on the solstice.

When is summer solstice? 

There are two solstices each year – one in the winter and one in the summer.

The summer solstice occurs when the tilt of Earth's axis is most inclined towards the sun and is directly above the Tropic of Cancer.

The event signals the moment the sun's path stops moving northward in the sky, and the start of days becoming steadily shorter as the slow march towards winter begins.