Time to start practising ‘there’s a grand stretch in the evenings’

Good news for all those awaiting the start of longer evenings: It may not be the winter solstice yet, but already the evenings are getting brighter.

As we all know, the evenings have been “closing in” since June, and on December 18th sunset in Dublin was recorded at 4.07pm, the earliest sunset this year.

But the short evenings have now hit their nadir.

Sunset on Friday is also at 4.07pm, but on Saturday however, it's at 4.08pm and the progression will continue.

But how can this happen in advance of the winter solstice which, in most cities in the northern hemisphere, is December 21st?

According to meteorologists, the answer is that while the evenings are getting longer, sunrise is still getting later. So while the evenings are now getting brighter, the mornings are still getting darker.

On Friday sunrise is at 8.37am in Dublin, and by the solstice it will be 8.38am, with the sun getting up even later on Christmas Eve at 8.39am.

As Gerald Fleming at Met Éireann puts it: "People think sunrise and sunset have their nadir at the same time, at the winter solstice."

In fact, the solstice is just the shortest amount of daylight in a day.

In reality, the evenings start getting brighter in early to mid December and the mornings don’t stop seeing later sunrises until the end of the month, or even early January.

So while the evenings are getting brighter, we are not really getting more daylight, as the mornings are darker – at least until December 21st.

But for those of us who have mourned the loss of light in the evenings, the worst is already over.

Now it gets better.