The summer solstice...the first day of summer...has come and gone, and with it, the most sunlight we'll see all year. This past Thursday (June 21), the first day of summer, brought us more than 15 hours of sunlight. The sun was also pretty high in the sky...at more than 68 degrees above the horizon. While the sun wasn't quite directly above us, at 90 degrees, 68 degrees is still pretty high! That angle made our sunlight quite bright on June 21.

By contrast, the first day of winter, December 21, will bring our sun angle down to just 21 degrees above the horizon...so the sun will be very low in the sky. At that lower angle, the light that we receive tends to seem a bit dimmer. Combine that with our gray, rainy skies, and it can be pretty dark around here! The fact that we only see a little more than eight hours of sunlight on the first day of winter can't help, either.

But, that's six months away. And, even though it's dark here in winter, ski season in the Northwest is pretty nice! =)

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