Winter begins today and we will have the shortest daylight and longest night -- or stretch of darkness -- of the year.
The winter solstice is at 10:27 p.m., ushering in the winter season, and we will only have night hours and eight minutes of daylight.
That is the shortest amount of daylight all year, but the stretches of daylight will begin to get longer in January.
What to know about the winter solstice
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In the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice occurs when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, according to the National Weather Service.
We get the seasons because the Earth is tilted on its axis by 23.5° and the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the sun in June and away from the sun in December, the National Weather Service explains.
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