How many times during the year will the sun be directly overhead at a certain angle?

Question

For example, How many times during the year will the sun be directly overhead at a 14 degree and 41 degree angle? Is there a formula to calculate this? Or is there some other way to help clarify how to do this?

Thanks!

Answer 1

It varies from zero times to two times, depending on the angle and your latitude.

As the Sun moves, it's "declination" changes. You can think of declination as being like celestial latitude: when the declination is -10°, for example, the Sun is overhead if your latitude is 10° South. Or when the declination is +20, the Sun is overhead if your latitude is 20° North.

During the year, the Sun moves from declination +23° 28' (on June 21) to zero (on September 23) to -23° 28' (December 21) and back to zero (March 21). The movement is not regular, though, because Earth's orbit is an ellipse and not circular.

To compute the Sun's altitude at local noon, you can use the equation:

altitude = latitude - 90 + declination

Answer 2

The sun is overhead at each of the tropics once a year (summer)

Between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, the sun is overhead twice each year (for example it is overhead th equator at the equinoxes (approx 21 March and 21 Decemer)

Outside the tropics (too close to the poles), the sun is never overhead

Answer 3

Look for something called an analemma. It is a very old navigation tool that describes the sun's angle at a given latitude for any day of the year.

Answer 4

particularly, the solar throws off lots of heat in wintry climate. a number of my prominent days are while that is definitely below 0, there is not any wind blowing, and the solar is shining. i will sense the warmth on my face and assorted times take my hat off to relish the sensation. I additionally funds in on the solar's warmth to clean my sidewalks and driveway while there is an ice buildup. you will get melting and a layer of liquid water below the ice anyplace the solar is shining, even while the air temperature is definitely below freezing. This makes it lots greater handy to clean. Ice frozen to concrete is like iron. As for temperature, it takes time to alter the temperature of the exterior and the ambience. wintry climate is less warm because of the fact over the direction of an afternoon, there are fewer hours of daylight hours than there are of evening. greater hours of cooling than of heating. This motives the temperature to steadily shrink over the direction of quite a few months. that is not any longer prompt. The shortest day interior the northern hemisphere is the wintry climate solstice, around Dec 21. however the coldest days are generally a month or greater in a while.

Answer 5

I assume you mean at noon, local sun time. Otherwise at many latitudes that could occur every day.