Sunday, Dec. 21, had the least daylight of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. In Washington, D.C., there were 9 hours, 26 minutes, and 18 seconds of daylight, about 2 seconds less than the day before or than on Monday.
Being the winter solstice, Sunday was also the day when the sun was lowest in the sky — it was only 27.7 degrees above the horizon in the district at its highest. Now, if you were to measure the sun’s height at its peak every day for the next week (about 12:06 p.m. on Monday, and about 12:10 pm a week from now), you would notice that while the 21st was its lowest altitude, it’s not really getting higher in the sky very fast at all.
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