I just pointed out Dec 21 for fun ;-). I prefer Festivus but whatever it's called it doesn't really matter as long as we get together. Sorry Dave McGuire. ... Mr. Riley - Back to picky though -- while sunlight is dimmest on the 21st, the actual effect on the ground and water temperature lags a bit behind. Lake temps are much higher in October than April. Random lake in Maine, Rangeley Lake: https://lakemonster.com/lake/ME/Rangeley%20Lake-water-temperature-1268 .. water temps drops until about Jan 4th when it's finally frozen, and stays frozen until late April. Same seems true for coastal water too: : https://www.weather.gov/gyx/water_temperature_normals.html .. even May has colder temps on average than May due to this lag effect. However Soil temps show some lag but not as much: Soil temps in Philadelphia for last year, (Source: https://www.greencastonline.com/tools/soil-temperature ) Coldest period is Mid-November through first week of March. indicating a lag of ~ 3 weeks from 12/21. That said I play the most video games around 12/21 because there's no light outside.. On Mon, Jul 25, 2022 at 5:05 PM David Riley via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Jul 25, 2022, at 2:15 PM, Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On 7/25/22 13:53, John Heritage wrote:
Winter starts Dec 21..
Well ok, I get your point, but I've never subscribed to that BS. If
there's snow on the ground, I'm wearing a coat, and I'm running PDP-11s in the house for extra heat, it's friggin' winter, dammit.
If we want to be picky (and we always do), I'd say winter *peaks* on the solstice, since it's the darkest day of the year. I'd argue it's well underway by the official calendar start date.
- Dave