I do not understand the "First Day of Winter" vs "All of Winter"?

Question

The 1st day of winter is the shortest day of the year - the day we are farthest away from the sun. Each day after the 1st day of winter, we get closer to the sun, but winter weather gets worse - colder, ice, snow, freezing fog, ect. It seems to me, the closer we get to the sun, the warmer it should be - can anyone make sense out of this for me?

Thanks,

Ken C.

Answer 1

even though the days are getting longer, the earth has had more time to cool down from summer. just like how the high temperature is typically recorded during mid to late afternoon instead of right at noon

Answer 2

Th enorthern hemisphere is actually closer to the sun in winter. It is the tilt of the Earth that causes winter to come.

Even as the Earth begins to tilt back toward the sun, we are still experiencing nights longer than our days. The cooling is cumulative. The more days of long nights, the cooler the Northern hemisphere becomes.

Its the same in Summer. June 21 or 22 is the longest day, but the heat gets worse and worse through July and most of August.

Answer 3

The time of year and the distance from the sun don't really matter in this case. That question came up several years ago when I was in school and our science teacher gave this answer. "imagine there is a fireplace burning a fire and you are 100 yards away from it. You won't feel the heat. Move in closer to 50 yards away from the fire. Even though you're closer it isn't significant enough to have any impact on your ability to feel the fire". So it is in this case. Even though we're actually closer to the sun in the winter, a few million miles just isn't enough to make a difference.