Winter solstice is an astronomical phenomenon marking the shortest day and the longest night of the year. In the Northern Hemisphere this is the December solstice and in the Southern Hemisphere this is the June solstice.
The axial tilt of Earth and gyroscopic effects of its daily rotation mean that the two opposite points in the sky to which the Earth's axis of rotation points (axial precession) change very slowly (making a complete circle approximately every 26,000 years). As the Earth follows its orbit around the Sun, the polar hemisphere that faced away from the Sun, experiencing winter, will, in half a year, face towards the Sun and experience summer. This is because the two hemispheres face opposite directions along Earth's axis, and so as one polar hemisphere experiences winter, the other experiences summer.
More evident from high latitudes, a hemisphere's winter solstice occurs on the shortest day and longest night of the year, when the sun's daily maximum elevation in the sky is at its lowest. The winter solstice itself lasts only a moment in time, so other terms are used for the day on which it occurs, such as "midwinter", or the "shortest day". It is often considered the "extreme of winter" (Dongzhi in the Chinese calendar). In meteorology, winter in the Northern Hemisphere spans the entire period of December through February. The seasonal significance of the winter solstice is in the reversal of the gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days. The earliest sunset and latest sunrise dates differ from winter solstice, however, and these depend on latitude, due to the variation in the solar day throughout the year caused by the Earth's elliptical orbit (see earliest and latest sunrise and sunset).
Midwinter is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Midwinter is a post-apocalyptic first-person action role-playing game with strategy and survival elements for the Atari ST, Amiga and PC. It was designed by Mike Singleton and was released in 1989 by Microplay Software. The game was critically acclaimed and commercially successful enough to get a sequel titled Flames of Freedom in 1991. A remake is currently in development.
The game is set in 2099 when the entire world is covered in snow and ice in a post-apocalyptic scenario, on the 160,000-square-mile (410,000 km2) isle of Midwinter. The game package includes a lengthy manual narrating its backstory in a short novella. It describes a cataclysmic meteorite strike in Burma around 2040 which caused impact winter. The ensuing diamond dust covering the Earth caused a global cooling and consequently major economical, political and military tumult. Populace of the northern areas died of glaciation and famine whereas the more temperate zones became overcrowded because of migration. As the glaciers advanced, the sea level lowered, providing more habitable space.