It’s Summertime Already

as of 4:51 p.m. EDT

Revelers gather at the ancient stone circle of Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice near Salisbury, England, on June 21, 2023. (Kin Cheung/AP)

First day of summer: June 20 solstice marks the longest day of the year – The Washington Post

Summer is arriving a bit earlier than usual this year, and not just because a major heat wave is baking the eastern United States and Canada this week. Thursday’s summer solstice — the longest day and shortest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere — is the earliest in 228 years, since 1796, when George Washington was president.

[…]

The main reason for the early solstice is that human calendars aren’t perfect. While a normal year (or non-leap year) has 365 days, Earth’s orbit around the sun each year is not exactly that long. On average, it takes about 365 days, 5 hours and 49 minutes — or 365.24219 days, according to timeanddate.com. To account for that extra quarter-day, the Gregorian calendar we adopted in the late 16th century adds one extra day (Feb. 29) to the calendar every four years. This is why we have leap years that are 366 days long.

Over time, this means that the solstices and equinoxes drift earlier by about 45 minutes every four years, or about three-quarters of a day per century. By 2096, the solstice will occur at its earliest time of this century.

To correct this discrepancy, the Gregorian calendar introduced a special rule: Any year divisible by four is a leap year, except for century years, which can only be leap years if they are divisible by 400. Therefore, 1600 and 2000 were leap years, while 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not.

Skipping three leap years every 400 years means the average length of the Gregorian calendar we use is 365.2425 days instead of 365.25 days. Those extra decimal places may not sound like a lot, but they keep our calendar in sync with the actual time it takes Earth to orbit the sun (365.24219 days).

Without this calibration, the solstices would move earlier indefinitely. Instead, the solstices (and equinoxes) will arrive earlier with each passing leap year until the end of the 21st century. However, the cycle will eventually reset. Because 2100 is not a leap year, the time of the solstice will start to drift later again.

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30 thoughts on “It’s Summertime Already”

  2. stephen on the loser’s brain “seemed par-boiled” starting at 3:09 in on

    As Americans mark the Juneteenth holiday with celebrations and remembrance, Stephen looks at the effects of heat on the human brain, the former president tried being nice for a change, and there’s a soggy scandal unfolding in the Green Mountain state.

  3. not just the weather heating up. 137 days to go and tempers continue to rise until the election.

    Editorial Cartoons for week of June 26 Photo Gallery - The Columbian

  9. Ivy, the Stones should be a good show.  I’m not exactly sure how Mick and Keef keep doing it, but they do.  I may need to get them onto my Old Rockers Last Tour list.

  10. So the opinions are rolling out – 2 of 4 with a third just beginning.  Not wide-ranging opinions so far.

    Immunity claim is delayed yet again. Thumb on the scale.

  13. NEW BIDEN AD: “Four years ago today, Trump held the superspreader rally in Tulsa that killed Herman Cain, and used his speech to make a case for less covid testing.”. TRUMP: “Here’s the bad part: When you do testing to that extent, you’re gonna find more people, you’re gonna find more cases. So I said to my people, ‘slow the testing down please!'”

    So I looked up what happened four years ago on upcoming debate day. Hope Biden brings this up. On that day 4 years ago it was announced that U.S. had the second highest COVID death rate in the world, and rising. But Trump told Americans “I think we’re going to be very good with the coronavirus. I think that’s going to sort of disappear”

  14. Yeah if there’s something everyone is anxious to hear from the Supreme Court you know they be like “Guess which hand. Guess which hand.  Ooooh, nope! Sorry—wrong hand.  Guess again, which hand, which hand?”

  15. The man is personally responsible for thousands of extra American deaths.  Responsible.  
    He did it, he and his henchmen.
     They KILLED people.  
    Why do they all radiance around it?  Why are there not torches and pitchforks over that?
    Dr Fauci was just on the view. Perhaps I’m still just bowled over by the focused wisdom, but also the ladies, i appreciated that they let him speak, he had a lot to say and they just opened the road for him.

  17. They played a clip of Trailer Greene in that hearing.    It was obscene.   Just obscene.  im thinking that there is a pretty wide audience for “The View” and I think, as I used to hear it batted about in school, She might finally have “showed her ass” in this one.

  18. One bright point on this nice breezy summers day, is the thought that Rep Boebert seems to have become “poison” and everybody knows it, especially her ex-husband.  And her ex-district.
    A pleasure thought, wot ye?

  21. They KILLED people. 
    Why do they all radiance around it?  Why are there not torches and pitchforks over that?

     
    The maggers weren’t upset by the demographics of most of the losses. To them it was a Darwin thing. 

  22. Rep Boebert seems to have become “poison”

     
    Her new district is crazier than her old district. More will be revealed on June 25. 

  23. COVID taught me that Americans are *****d when an even more serious crisis comes

    right, left, young, old, a buncha dips that are gonna get steamrolled, start learning Chinese

  25. It’s not unusual for performers to acknowledge the challenges they experience at high altitude. Mick Jagger mentioned it during The Rolling Stones’ show at Empower Field at Mile High in August. In the new documentary “Mountaintop,” Neil Young and his bandmates discuss taking hits of oxygen while recording the album “Colorado” at a studio near Telluride earlier this year.

    https://www.denverpost.com/2019/12/02/denver-altitude-phantom-of-the-opera-kristin-chenoweth/

  26. Sutherland was a great actor, of course, but wow, the script choices!  Not a clunker in his extensive filmography 

  28. Sorry to hear about Donald Sutherland.  Loved his early 70s films, particularly MASH and Kelly’s Heroes, but the one that left me gobsmacked was Don’t Look Now with Julie Christy, and he blew me away in Klute.  And for me his last great role was in Ordinary People although I loved his character in Space Cowboys and enjoyed his role, small as it was, in A Time to Kill. 

  29. Mick Jagger delivered the show (fabulous) plus a joke that had Lauren Boebert in the punchline. He said all in good fun. She has to be very happy he said her name. 

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