Today Is Winter Solstice, Not The Apocalypse

December 21, 2012

Although some people were expecting the end of the world to occur, today [Dec 21] is actually the winter solstice and the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. The December solstice occurs when the sun reaches its most southerly declination of -23.5 degrees. In other words, it is when the North Pole is tilted 23.5 degrees away from the sun.

During the winter solstice the sun hugs closer to the horizon than at any other time during the year, yielding the least amount of daylight annually. According to the Bermuda Weather Service, today’s sunrise was at 7.16am and sunset will occur at 5.18pm giving us approximately ten hours of daylight.

Some predicted that today would also mark Earth’s doomsday, with the Maya calendar ending on December 21, 2012 causing doomsday-believers around the globe to brace for what they believe will be the end of the world.

A Chinese inventor built “survival pods”, an Italian contractor developed underground bunkers to safeguard their Italian owners, while fare finder website Skyscanner reports its customers are showing an increasing interest in one-way tickets to “Apocalypse safe havens.”

Unlike the last expected doomsday, Bermudians did not receive any dedicated warnings of this impending end of the world event. As many will recall, last year a group of visitors made their way to Bermuda to warn us all that the world was due to end in May 2011.

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Category: All, Environment

Comments (1)

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  1. c. k. Simons says:

    I knew way back when Y2K was all the rage that it was garbage and so 12 years later, more of the same. In the 1840′s the Millerites had the same problem. They sold everythtng, bought ‘assension robes’ and two years in a row, nothing happened: so now we have the JW’s getting on my nerves. SDA’s are another off-shoot of that time. A little scientific investigation will save folk a lot of embarrassment if thay’d lower their gualbility quotent.