Winter officially arrives on the North Olympic Peninsula at 3:38 p.m. today.
Known as the winter solstice, this is the moment when the Earth’s axial tilt is farthest away from the sun.
The result is the shortest day of the year (8 hours, 25 minutes and 15 seconds of daylight) as well as the year’s longest night, for everyone in the Northern Hemisphere.
(In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the longest day, and the beginning of summer.)
Today’s winter solstice falls on the same day as the completion of an lunar eclipse, the first time that has happened since 1554, according to NASA.
The eclipse started at around 10 p.m. Monday and ended at about 2:30 a.m. today.
In Port Angeles, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 510 S. Park Ave., holds a “Blue Christmas/Longest Night” service tonight.
The service begins at 7 p.m. and will recognize and honor the loneliness, isolation and “new or returning sorrow” that the holidays can bring.
“All are welcome at this beautiful, candlelit ecumenical service, which welcomes our darkness as it provides a place to remember that the light of Christ has been sent to overcome it,” the church said.
In Port Townsend, the Room to Move yoga studio is inviting the public to mark the solstice today by watching 108 sets of flowing yoga poses saluting the sun, done to music from all over the world.
The event will run from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the upstairs studio at 1008 Lawrence St.
Suggested donation is $10, and a portion of proceeds will benefit Dove House Advocacy Services. Children will be admitted free.
While the winter solstice marks the dark, depressing depths of winter, our nights, second by second will get shorter — and the days will get longer — as the calendar moves toward spring.
Wednesday will gain two seconds of daylight, and Thursday will add eight more, according to timeanddate.com.
