If It Feels Like Darkness Shadows Daylight This Week, You’re Right

People will be popping their Vitamin D pills this week because of the lack of sunshine and daylight, as we prepare for the Winter Solstice. Meanwhile, if you're a fan of the cold and dark - you'll be in your glory.

Get ready for some nerdy technical weather information as we embark on what its officially, the first day of winter.

The Winter Solstice arrives on Thursday and we'll spend the next few days with the shortest amount of daylight all year long. In fact, all this week throughout Upstate New York, we'll actually have less than nine hours of daylight. The good news is, after Thursday, the days will ever so slowly, be getting longer.

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week, the sun will rise at 7:28 AM and set at 4:28 PM, and if you choose to get technical, Wednesday will see 4 additional seconds of daylight as compared to Thursday, the first day of winter. The winter solstice actually arrives this year on December 21, at 10:27 p.m. EST.

Here's how it all breaks down according to TimeAndDate.com in the chart below for the rest of the month.
DATE              HOURS OF DAYLIGHT (hours/minutes/seconds)
December 17 - 9:00:17
December 18 - 8:59:59
December 19 - 8:59:46
December 20 - 8:59:37
December 21 - 8:59:33
December 22 - 8:59:34
December 23 - 8:59:38
December 24 - 8:59:48
December 25 - 9:00:02
December 26 - 9:00:20
December 27 - 9:00:42
December 28 - 9:01:09
December 29 - 9:01:41
December 30 - 9:02:17
December 31 - 9:02:57
January 1 -       9:03:41

Following the holidays, our days will progress swiftly as by January 31st, the sun will rise at 7:17 and set at 5:11, giving us nearly 50 additional minutes of daylight. Obviously, we'll be working towards the Summer Solstice when we have the most daylight in Upstate New York on June 20th, when we'll enjoy almost 15.5 hours of daylight with the sun rising at 5:21 and setting at 8:43.