Winter Solstice at Sails Ashore

Winter Solstice on the 21st June for us in the Southern Hemisphere is our shortest day and longest night. On a heavily cloudy day it will be dark at around 1700, and leaving on the morning ferry at 0800 will have your headlights on driving down. So our days are quite short, and at 46Deg 58min south latitude it’s generally a bit cooler than we would like.

Exception This Year

But this mid-winters day was one out of the box. I spent the morning outside, not in shorts I hasten to assure folk … that would be a horrible sight, but certainly in light drills and a thin shirt. I came in for a lateish lunch and Iris remarked on how warm it was, looked at our met station and it was reading 14.2 deg. Now the sensor is not tucked into a sun trap, but is around 4 metres above our roof line, so very definitely air temps.

Not Bright Sun

It wasn’t brightly sunny, actually thin high cloud from mid morning, and now as I type this its heavily overcast … well there are no stars, nor moon, and it’s raining.

So I guess the warm conditions were partially due to the approaching frontal system, and very calm conditions. All night and until late morning, virtually flat calm.

Whatever the conditions that came together to give us such a “Pet” Day, Iris & I aren’t complaining