Sunrise, sunset never get further apart than the first day of summer
Naja Wright, 6, of Syracuse cools off while doing cartwheels at Washington Square Park Monday, the first day of summer.Monday, at 7:28 a.m. our time, the sun was straight up for an observer standing on Tropic of Cancer in the southeastern corner of Algeria, in Africa.
According to the U.S. Naval Observatory, in 240 B.C. the Greek astronomer Eratosthenes used the sun’s solstice position in northern Africa to calculate the distance between Aswan, Egypt (then Syene) and Alexandria. From that, he worked out the circumference of the Earth, establishing the fact that the world was a sphere some 1,732 years before Christopher Columbus set sail.
For Central New Yorkers, the start of summer means the longest day and shortest night of the year. The sun set at 8:48 p.m. Monday night and it will set at 8:48 for the rest of this week. Sunrise, which came at 5:25 p.m. Monday, will slip back to 5:27 a.m. by Sunday, shortening the day by two minutes.
The shortening will continue until December 21, the first day of winter, when the sun will appear straight up to someone standing on the Tropic of Capricorn, the southern boundary of the tropics.
Weather forecasters expect the first week of summer to be, well, summery, with sun and high temperatures in the 80s, some clouds and the possibility of thunderstorms.
If the forecasts aren’t completely accurate, don’t be too hard on them; experts figure Eratosthenes estimate of the Earth’s circumference was off by anywhere from 250 miles to more than 4,000 miles, and he’s still considered pretty smart.
Spring was warm and wet, statistically speaking.
Contact Charles McChesney at cmcchesney@syracuse.com.