Thursday marks winter solstice, shortest day of year in Arizona

PHOENIX — It’s not your imagination: The sun did rise really late Thursday and will likely be almost down by the time you leave work.

Thursday is the winter solstice — the shortest day of the year — and the official beginning of winter.

The solstice is technically when the sun’s direct rays hit the southernmost point that they will hit on Earth. In the Northern Hemisphere, this occurs in December, while the Southern Hemisphere’s winter solstice occurs in June.

It certainly felt like the chilliest of seasons on Thursday. The high in Phoenix was expected to be below 60 degrees and the overnight low was supposed to slip below 40.

It also snowed in the northern part of the state.

In Arizona, the sun rose about 7:28 a.m. and will set at 5:25 p.m., meaning we’ll have 9 hours and 57 minutes of daylight.

That’s not a whole lot of time and it got us thinking: If you were to do one thing for the entire time the sun will be up on Thursday, what would you have time to do?

Here’s what we came up with:

Watch “The Last Jedi” nearly four times

You running to the bathroom for the fourth time, probably. (Industrial Light & Magic/Lucasfilm via AP)

The latest “Star Wars” flick has a run time of 2:33, meaning you could take in the full movie almost four times.

Of course, that’s not allowing time to grab popcorn — or for bathroom breaks — so you’d better get the extra large and time those restroom runs right.

Take a road trip

Who’s got the tunes? (Public Domain Photo)

If you left in the car the second the sun came up and stopped the second it set, you definitely wouldn’t be in Arizona anymore.

But that’s not to say you’d end up anywhere exciting. By our math, you could be near the New Mexico-Texas border or Fresno, California. That’s assuming you averaged 70 mph, you good driver, you.

We’re not accounting for holiday traffic, however, so let’s be more realistic: In nearly 10 hours, you can probably make it about two miles in rush hour.

Get some exercise

You may want to grab a jacket. It’s a little chilly. (Public Domain Photo)

The world record for running a mile is 3:43.13, which is pretty darn fast. A decently fit person will run a mile in about 10 minutes.

That means, if you ran from sunrise to sunset, you could cover just shy of 60 miles. That’ll cook off some of those holiday calories.

If the world record holder, Hicham El Guerrouj, were to maintain his insane pace the entire time, he would run more than three times that.

Take a good, long nap

Zzzzzz (Public Domain Photo)

If you’re of the vampiric sort — or work nights — you could have a nice, long rest. Given that the average person needs eight hours of sleep to be fully rested, you could get a jump start on those long holiday nights when you’ll lose some shuteye in the near future.

Bake — a lot — of holiday goodies

We didn’t include decorating time. Gulp. (Public Domain Photo)

You could use Thursday to tackle your holiday baking needs.

While there’s no agreed upon time, it seemed 8 minutes is the sweet spot when it comes to making cookies. That means, if you worked the oven from sunup to sundown, you could make a whopping 74 batches of tasty treats.

You’ll probably need to hit the store for more butter and sugar.

Catch a full slate of NFL games

Hey, would you pass me about a dozen of those cookies? (Public Domain Photo)

If sports is more your style, you could watch more than three full NFL football games.

The average game time is 3 hours and 12 minutes, which should give you a good amount of time to start eating all those cookies you just made.

Related

Two suspects sought after $93K worth of high-end items, MLB gear stolen from storage unitShort-term rental properties keep Scottsdale police busySAFE Alert canceled after missing 85-year-old Glendale man returned home safelyBernadette Greene-Placentia, congressional candidate, recounts sexual assaultVice President JD Vance to headline Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in PhoenixApache Junction police seek public’s help after woman kidnapped at gunpoint