Its Summer, where did the sun go?

By Rich Hoffman

Summer Started on June 20th at 8:59PM and now that we are a month into the season, its hazy, hot and Humid. One thing we are losing is daylight. The Summer solstice is the Longest day of the Year, when we have about 15 hours of daylight. The sunrise on June 20th is around 5:25am and sets around 8:25pm.

On July 21st, the sun rises at 8:40am and sets at 8:18pm, that is a loss of 22 minutes of daylight. How are we suppose to enjoy the warm weather if we are losing daylight hours?  Sometimes here on Long Island, it feels like we only get 4 months of warm weather. Look up sunrise and sunsets times.

The reason for the change in daylight hours is the rotation of the Earth about its Axis and the revolution of  the Earth around the Sun. On June 20th, The sun's direct rays hit the Tropic of Cancer and that allows the most solar radiation to hit Long Island and the North Hemisphere.
As the Earth continues to rotate around the sun, we lose the direct solar radiation and hence we lose daylight hours through December 21st--the Winter Solstice. On this day we only get about 9 hours of daylight. At this point the sun's direct rays hit the Tropic of Capricorn.

So enjoy summer and the warm weather. Pretty soon it will be winter and we will be dealing with cold and a lot of snow.