Mild, clear and a "Leap Second" and the Solstice

Good Morning Augusta

Today is the shortest day of the year, the winter Solstice.

This Morning we have sunny skies with a high around 35ºF with winds from the WSW at 5 to 10 mph.

Tonight we’ll have Partly cloudy skies that will give way to cloudy skies overnight. A few flurries or snow showers are possible. Low will be 22ºF with light and variable winds.

The readings from my weather instruments in the North field are:

Humidity is 72%, the dew point is 14ºF, outside it’s ºC and 18.7ºF.

The wind direction is Northeast between 0.0 MPH and  0.1 MPH, generating a wind chill of 18.7ºF.

The Barometric pressure is 30.02 / HPA 1016.5 and falling with a weather graphic indicating rain/snow potential.

The UV rating is 0.0 out of 16, Sunrise is at 7:11 a.m. Sunset is 4:02 P.M. Moon rise is at xx:xx p.m., Moon set is 12:04 p.m. and the moon phase is in its last quarter.  

The RAW METAR reading from the airport in Augusta, Maine is:

METAR KAUG 211053Z AUTO 00000KT 10SM CLR M06/M10 A2994 RMK AO2 SLP146 T10561100

Visibility is 10.0 miles / 16.1 Kilometers with clear skies.

We didn’t receive any rain or snow over the past 24 hours.

And, directly from the online Old Farmer’s Almanac posted yesterday --

Dear Almanac readers,

Early tomorrow morning  brings the winter solstice. Yes, this is referred to as the "shortest day of the year."  Better yet, let's call it the point when the days get "longer," i.e., the amount of daylight starts to increase.

That brings us to Chanukah and Christmas, which begin around the same time this year. Chanukah begins on the 24th at sundown; the date is primarily based on the lunar cycle. Christmas Day is symbolically celebrated on the 25th, as it has been since the 4th century. To all who celebrate, we wish you a Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas!

With all good wishes,

Your Almanac Editors

And, in view of the country’s current low in public tolerance and cooperation:

“Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.”

–Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

And, for the perfectionists out there, read this and DO NOT forget to adjust your clock accordingly!

Do you wish 2016 would last a little longer? You might just get your wish. That’s because an extra second — a leap second — will be added to the final minute of 2016.  But why?

Leap seconds, just like leap days, are occasionally inserted to ensure our clocks are in sync with changes in the Earth’s rotation.

How Is Time Kept Accurate?
Something called “International Atomic Time” keeps our clocks across the globe in sync. It is a very accurate and stable time scale; a weighted average of the time kept by about 200 atomic clocks in over 50 national laboratories worldwide. Atomic time is measured through vibrations of atoms in a metal isotope that resembles mercury and can keep time to within a 10th of a billionth of a second a day. The result is extremely accurate time that can be transmitted by radio throughout North America where atomic watches and clocks can receive the signal. Improved time and frequency standards have many applications.

For instance: ultra-precise clocks can be used to improve synchronization in precision navigation and positioning systems, telecommunications networks, and deep-space communications. But from their careful observations of the positions of the stars, astronomers have deduced that our Earth’s rotation is ever so slightly slowing down at a non-uniform rate, probably attributable to changes in the distribution of mass in the Earth’s interior. As a result, Earth falls out of step with our atomic clocks. When the difference between the two amounts to one second, a “leap-second” is inserted into the atomic time scale.

This will happen on Saturday, December 31st, when the final minute of 2016 as measured at the Greenwich meridian time will last 61 seconds. This will correspond to 6:59:60 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (so no, it won’t happen as the ball drops in Times Square).

Have We Added Leap Seconds Before?
The first time a leap second was implemented was in 1972. So not only was that a leap year of 366 days (as is the case also in 2016), but there were not one, but two extra seconds added — one at the end of June 30th, and the other, as will be the case this year, at the end of December 31st.

Now for most of us, this slight alteration of the time scale is not important, but in a very few cases it can affect some jobs: In 1972 the Hayden Planetarium got a phone call from the man who was responsible for dropping the famous lighted ball from atop of what was then called the Allied Chemical Tower in Times Square. In those days, the procedure for lowering the ball was done using manpower and a simple rope and pulley. The caller wanted to get an explanation about the extra second, because (to quote him), “I don’t want to drop that ball one second too soon!”