While you might have seen sunny snaps of people in the Northern Hemisphere celebrating the summer solstice on Instagram, for us in Australia, June 21 marked the winter solstice, which is the shortest day and longest night of the year for the Southern Hemisphere.
According to Britannica, the winter solstice — also known as the hibernal solstice — is when the path of the Sun in the sky is the farthest north in the Southern Hemisphere and travels the shortest distance, hence the less daylight, more darkness phenomenon. This event occurs due to the way the Earth rotates around the Sun on a slight tilt.
“The seasons on Earth change because the planet is slightly tilted on its axis as it travels around the Sun,” explains Britannica. “This means different points on Earth receive more or less sunlight at different times of year. If Earth were not tilted, the Sun would always appear to be directly above the Equator, the amount of light a given location receives would be fixed, and there would be no seasons. There also would be no need to mark equinoxes or solstices.”
And, as per the astronomical definition of the seasons, the winter solstice also officially marks the beginning of winter, which lasts until the vernal equinox, which takes place in September. The meteorological seasons, on the other hand, have the start of winter pegged at June 1, but according to Dr Blair Trewin, senior climatologist at the Bureau of Meteorology, it’s much of a muchness, telling ABC that “there isn’t really anything ‘official’ about them”.
While the solstice might mark the beginning of winter, it also means that the days will begin to get longer again and as such, is celebrated by many cultures as a time of rebirth. Traditions based around this concept can be seen through the Tasmanian festival Dark Mofo, which celebrates the winter solstice with the Nude Solstice Swim.
This is a free event that involves participants plunging into the icy water at Long Beach, Sandy Bay in Hobart to mark the solstice. In 2019, almost 2,000 people stripped off for the swim. The 2021 event of the Nude Solstice Swim took place on June 22 and kicked off at 7:24am, officially wrapping up the Dark Mofo festival.
While the winter solstice might have marked the shortest day of the year (with longer days on the horizon), according to the ABC, there’s still a few short, dark winter mornings to go. The sunrise will be slightly later (around 7am AEST) until the end of the month before it switches again and we welcome earlier sunrises.
