4 Tweets 2 reads Apr 10, 2023
I tweeted this at the exact minute of the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, when Northern Earth is tilting as far towards the sun as it ever can. Here's my slightly hectic visual explanation:
A cool visual by @Climatologist49 showing how many hours of daylight each northern latitude will get today. (h/t @simongerman600)
The Arctic Circle is the southernmost latitude that experiences at least one day of 24-hour sunlight (or darkness, in December). That happens today.
The Tropic of Cancer is the northernmost latitude that ever has the sun directly overhead. At mid-day today, people living on the Tropic of Cancer will have no shadow. This happens twice a year for everyone in between the two tropics and never for people outside of them.
If today is the solstice, why are July and August the hottest months? The amount of heat entering the atmosphere each day starts to decrease post-solstice, but each day is still a heat net positive until mid-summer, so the temperature continues to rise till then.

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