The winter solstice officially arrives Sunday in the northern hemisphere, and the Chicago area will see its shortest day of the year.
According to NBC 5 Storm Team Meteorologist Pete Sack, the winter solstice officially occurred at 9:03 a.m. Sunday, and the Chicago area will see just over nine hours and seven minutes of daylight.
After Sunday, the Chicago area will begin to see more daylight, albeit extremely slowly at first, gaining just two seconds on Monday and continuing with that trend through the rest of the month.
Slowly but surely, the region will begin to see more daylight, and we’ll hit some key milestones along the way.
On January 4, the Chicago area will see its latest sunrise of the year, which will occur just before 7:17 a.m.
On January 27, the Chicago area will see the sun set after 5 p.m. for the first time since November 1, and three days later, the city will see more than 10 hours of daylight for the first time since November 12.
By the end of February, Chicago will be seeing more than 11 hours of daylight, gaining nearly three minutes of sunlight per day.
Sunday, March 8 will mark the beginning of daylight saving time, and on March 20, the Chicago area will officially mark the spring equinox.
Daylight will continue to increase through the summer solstice in June of next year, meaning that we have six months of increasing sunlight to look forward to after Sunday.