Why is it colder after the winter solstice?
Q: Why isn’t the longest day of the year also the hottest? Why isn’t the shortest day of the year the coldest? A: The coldest part of the year lags about a month behind the shortest day, just as the warmest days come a month or so after the longest days. To keep the answer simple, we won’t consider warm or cool air coming in from other places, but will assume the air at a particular location stays in place, warming and cooling. We could think of the air in such a place as being like a bank account. If you add money to a bank account, it grows. If you add heat to air it warms up. The Earth is always losing heat, like a bank account that you’re always taking some money from. If the amount of heat arriving from the sun is exactly equal to the amount leaving, the temperature stays the same. As days grow longer in spring and early meteorological summer, the balance tips to more heat arriving than leaving. This is like adding money to the account faster than you are withdrawing it. The air g
