Winter Solstice marked for Friday, ‘coldest days’ to follow

AMMAN — Director General of Jordan Meteorological Department (JMD) Raed Khattab on Wednesday said that Friday, December 22, marks the winter solstice. 

The winter solstice will start at 6:27am on Friday, Khattab said in a JMD statement to The Jordan Times. 

On that day, the sun in Amman will rise at 7:32am and set at 5:36pm, marking the shortest day of the year at 10 hours and three minutes, and the longest night of the year at 13 hours and 57 minutes. 

Following the first day of winter, days will start to become longer and nights shorter, until they become equal again on March 21, which marks the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere. 

Khattab said that the winter solstice in Jordan coincides with the start of ‘marbaniyeh’, the local name given to the 40 coldest days of winter, which accounts for some 30 per cent of the rainfall in the wet season nationwide.

Studies at JMD indicate that the highest rainfall registered at the Amman Civil Airport over the past 100 years during marbaniyeh was in the 1973-1974 season with 215 millimetres, which equalled 87 per cent of the seasonal average, while the lowest rainfall during marbaniyeh was 0.7 millimetres in the 2013-2014 season. 

Khattab noted that climate statistics for the marbaniyeh show that the average high temperature during the 1991-2020 period was registered at the Amman Civil Airport at 13.1°C, while the average low temperature stood at 4.6°C.