Wheel of the Year · Yule
Winter solstice 2026: the Sun enters Capricorn at 20:50 UTC
Monday, December 21. The longest night up north, the longest day down south, and a nearly full Moon in Taurus watching both.
Photo: NPS / Bill Bjornstad
At a glance
The winter solstice 2026 is Monday, December 21 at 20:50 UTC (3:50 PM EST in New York). The Sun enters Capricorn at that moment. Yule is usually kept that day.
- Exact moment
- Dec 21, 2026 · 20:50 UTCSun at 0°00′ Capricorn
- US Eastern
- 3:50 PM EST12:50 PM PST Pacific
- Australia (Sydney)
- Tuesday, December 22 at 7:50 AM GMT+11summer solstice there
- Moon that night
- Waxing Gibbous, 93% litin Taurus, full 53 h later
- Winter solstice 2027
- Dec 22, 2027 · 02:42 UTCa day later on the UTC calendar
See where Capricorn falls in your chartFree birth chart: find the house the Sun enters at the solstice.
The moment
One instant, everywhere at once
Try this today
- Set an alarm for 3:50 PM EST (or your local equivalent below). Step outside for one minute, even if it is cold.
- Note the time of sunset today and again on January 6. You will see the change before you feel it.
Every festival on the Wheel of the Year 2026Capricorn: the sign
It is dark at 4:30. You leave work and the streetlights are already on, the kind of evening where dinner feels like it should be at six and bed at eight. That is the solstice showing up in your body before it shows up on any calendar.
The astronomical part is precise. On Monday, December 21, 2026, at 20:50 UTC, the Sun reaches its farthest point south on its yearly path. Astronomers call that the December solstice. Astrologers call it the moment the Sun enters 0° Capricorn. In the tropical zodiac those are the same thing by definition, which is why "Sun into Capricorn 2026" and "winter solstice 2026" have the same answer.
It happens at one instant for the whole planet, so the local clock differs: 3:50 PM EST in New York, 12:50 PM PST in Los Angeles, 8:50 PM GMT in London. In Sydney and Auckland the calendar has already flipped to December 22.
The Sun arrives 44.5 days after astronomical Samhain, the cross-quarter halfway point. Next year the solstice slides to Dec 22, 2027 · 02:42 UTC, the normal six-hour drift of a 365-day calendar against a year that is about a quarter-day longer.
The sky behind it
Computed with skyfield and the JPL DE442 ephemeris: the instant the Sun's geocentric apparent ecliptic longitude reaches 270°. The same method gives the June 2026 solstice as Jun 21, 2026 · 08:24 UTC.
The astrology
What astrologers read into the Capricorn ingress
Try this today
- Find which house of your birth chart starts or holds 0° Capricorn. That is the area of life astrologers say the season spotlights for you.
- Write one thing you want finished by the spring equinox. One. Capricorn likes a single clear target.
Capricorn is the cardinal earth sign, ruled in tradition by Saturn. Cardinal signs open each season, so the four cardinal ingresses (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) are the corners of the astrological year. The ancient astrologer Ptolemy, writing in the 2nd century AD, already treated the solstices and equinoxes as the turning points of the seasons in his Tetrabiblos.
The mood astrologers usually describe is practical: structure, patience, the projects that take a whole winter. It is the "lock in" season, minus the hustle-culture guilt. You are allowed to build slowly.
Here is the sky at the moment itself, all computed. The Moon is in Taurus at 29°00′ Taurus, 93% lit and waxing, with the full moon due 53 hours later at 2°14′ Cancer. Saturn, Capricorn's ruler, sits at 8°02′ Aries, moving direct. Mercury is at 23°53′ Sagittarius, Venus at 13°48′ Scorpio and Mars at 8°11′ Virgo. Retrograde at the ingress: Jupiter, Uranus.
Some astrologers cast a chart for the ingress at their own location and read the houses as a forecast for the next three months. If that appeals, use it as a journaling prompt rather than a verdict.
Rome in December
Saturnalia: what the Roman sources actually say
Try this today
- Do a Saturnalia-style gift swap: one candle or one tiny figurine each, nothing expensive. That is the documented version.
- Flip the roles for one dinner: whoever usually cooks gets served.
Saturnalia was Rome's festival of Saturn, held from December 17 (Britannica). It began with a sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn in the Forum and a public banquet, and over time stretched to several days. Writing around AD 400, Macrobius devoted a whole dialogue, the Saturnalia, to it, and discusses how the length grew from one day to longer (Wikipedia).
What happened? Feasting, gambling allowed in public, small gifts such as wax candles (cerei) and pottery figurines (sigillaria), and a famous relaxation of social rules, including masters serving their slaves at dinner. The poet Catullus calls it "the best of days" (poem 14). Pliny the Younger, in a letter (2.17), describes a room at his villa where he could work in peace while the rest of the household celebrated. Some things never change.
It was not timed to the solstice minute. The Roman calendar fixed it to a date. And the link people love to draw, Saturnalia "became" Christmas, is looser than memes suggest. The first record of December 25 as Christ's birthday is the Chronograph of 354, a Roman almanac that also lists that day as the birthday of Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun (Sol Invictus). Historians still debate how much either festival shaped the other.
The North
Yule before it was a Wheel of the Year sabbat
Try this today
- Keep vigil for the returning light: one candle at sunset on the 21st, a walk at sunrise on the 22nd.
- If you have a fireplace, burn one good log and say what you want to keep from this year. If not, a candle does the same job.
The word is old. In The Reckoning of Time (AD 725), the English monk Bede lists the Anglo-Saxon months and names two of them Giuli, around December and January. He says the pagan English began their year on December 25 and called that night Modranecht, "mothers' night" (Bede).
In Scandinavia, the Old Norse jól shows up in sagas written down in Iceland in the 13th century. In Hákonar saga góða, part of Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, King Haakon the Good is said to have moved the jól feast to line up with the Christian Christmas; before that, the saga says, it began on a midwinter night and lasted three nights (Yule). These texts were written by Christians, centuries after the fact, so treat the details carefully.
Even older stones remember the solstice. At Newgrange in Ireland, built about 3200 BC, sunlight enters a roof-box and reaches the inner chamber around winter-solstice sunrise (UNESCO). Stonehenge is aligned on the solstice axis, midsummer sunrise one way and midwinter sunset the other (English Heritage).
The Yule most people mean today, one of eight sabbats on the Wheel of the Year, is a modern Pagan arrangement from mid-20th-century Britain (Wheel of the Year). It ties Yule to the astronomical solstice, which is why the exact minute matters to people now. The Yule log itself is a later European folk custom. New does not mean fake. It means honest about its age.
Below the equator
Australia and New Zealand: it's the summer solstice
If you are reading this from a beach in Sydney, the December solstice is your longest day: Tuesday, December 22 at 7:50 AM GMT+11. The Sun rises at 5:41 am and sets at 8:05 pm, 14 hours 25 minutes of daylight. Melbourne gets 14 hours 47 minutes.
Astrologically, nothing flips. The tropical zodiac is tied to the Sun's path, not to your local weather, so the Sun still enters Capricorn at the same instant. What changes is the festival. Many Southern Hemisphere Pagans keep Litha, the midsummer sabbat, now, and keep Yule at the June solstice instead. Australia's 2026 winter solstice was Sunday, June 21 at 6:24 PM GMT+10, and the next is Tuesday, June 22 at 12:10 AM GMT+10.
So if you searched "winter solstice 2026 Australia astrology", you have two answers. For the sky and the zodiac: Sun into Capricorn, December 22 your time. For the season and the sabbat: June 21 or 22, when the Sun enters Cancer.
Your solstice
The solstice on your clock
Pick a city to see the exact solstice minute there, the day's sunrise and sunset, and how much light it gains or loses by June. The countdown runs on your own device's time zone.
Pick a city
Winter solstice in New York
Dec 21, 3:50 pm
That is the Sun reaching 0° Capricorn, on the local clock (America/New York). Sunrise 7:16 am, sunset 4:31 pm, so 9 h 15 min of daylight.
This is New York's shortest day. Its June 2027 solstice gets 5 h 51 min more light.
Odd but true: the earliest sunset here is Dec 7 (4:28 pm) and the latest sunrise is Jan 4 (7:20 am). The shortest day sits between them.
The clock to the solstice
December 2026
Counting down to the Sun at 0° Capricorn.
More to read
Shorter reads. Each opens in place.
The Moon around it
The lunations bracketing the solstice
A new moon at 16°57′ Sagittarius on Dec 9, 2026 · 00:51 UTC opens the stretch. The solstice lands on a waxing gibbous Moon in Taurus, and the full moon follows at 2°14′ Cancer on Dec 24, 2026 · 01:28 UTC. The first new moon of Capricorn season is Jan 7, 2027 · 20:24 UTC at 17°18′ Capricorn.
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The light swing
How much light comes back
New York gets 5 hours 51 minutes more daylight at the June 2027 solstice than on December 21. London gains 8 hours 48 minutes. Edinburgh has just 6 hours 57 minutes on the solstice, and Reykjavik 4 hours 7 minutes, sunrise at 11:22 am. Rome, for scale: 9 hours 8 minutes.
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Winter solstice times, computed
The December solstice in local time and daylight for each city, then the next ten years of solstices.
| City | Local time | Sunrise | Sunset | Daylight | Season |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York | Dec 21, 3:50 pm | 7:16 am | 4:31 pm | 9 hours 15 minutes | Winter |
| Los Angeles | Dec 21, 12:50 pm | 6:54 am | 4:47 pm | 9 hours 53 minutes | Winter |
| Chicago | Dec 21, 2:50 pm | 7:14 am | 4:22 pm | 9 hours 8 minutes | Winter |
| Toronto | Dec 21, 3:50 pm | 7:47 am | 4:43 pm | 8 hours 56 minutes | Winter |
| London | Dec 21, 8:50 pm | 8:03 am | 3:53 pm | 7 hours 50 minutes | Winter |
| Dublin | Dec 21, 8:50 pm | 8:38 am | 4:08 pm | 7 hours 30 minutes | Winter |
| Edinburgh | Dec 21, 8:50 pm | 8:42 am | 3:39 pm | 6 hours 57 minutes | Winter |
| Reykjavik | Dec 21, 8:50 pm | 11:22 am | 3:29 pm | 4 hours 7 minutes | Winter |
| Rome | Dec 21, 9:50 pm | 7:34 am | 4:41 pm | 9 hours 8 minutes | Winter |
| Mumbai | Dec 22, 2:20 am | 7:07 am | 6:06 pm | 10 hours 59 minutes | Winter |
| Sydney | Dec 22, 7:50 am | 5:41 am | 8:05 pm | 14 hours 25 minutes | Summer |
| Melbourne | Dec 22, 7:50 am | 5:54 am | 8:42 pm | 14 hours 47 minutes | Summer |
| Perth | Dec 22, 4:50 am | 5:07 am | 7:22 pm | 14 hours 15 minutes | Summer |
| Auckland | Dec 22, 9:50 am | 5:58 am | 8:40 pm | 14 hours 42 minutes | Summer |
| Year | Exact moment (UTC) | US Eastern |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Dec 21, 2026 · 20:50 UTC | Monday, December 21 at 3:50 PM EST |
| 2027 | Dec 22, 2027 · 02:42 UTC | Tuesday, December 21 at 9:42 PM EST |
| 2028 | Dec 21, 2028 · 08:19 UTC | Thursday, December 21 at 3:19 AM EST |
| 2029 | Dec 21, 2029 · 14:14 UTC | Friday, December 21 at 9:14 AM EST |
| 2030 | Dec 21, 2030 · 20:09 UTC | Saturday, December 21 at 3:09 PM EST |
| 2031 | Dec 22, 2031 · 01:55 UTC | Sunday, December 21 at 8:55 PM EST |
| 2032 | Dec 21, 2032 · 07:55 UTC | Tuesday, December 21 at 2:55 AM EST |
| 2033 | Dec 21, 2033 · 13:46 UTC | Wednesday, December 21 at 8:46 AM EST |
| 2034 | Dec 21, 2034 · 19:34 UTC | Thursday, December 21 at 2:34 PM EST |
| 2035 | Dec 22, 2035 · 01:30 UTC | Friday, December 21 at 8:30 PM EST |
| Body | Position | Motion |
|---|---|---|
| Moon | 29°00′ Taurus | - |
| Mercury | 23°53′ Sagittarius | Direct |
| Venus | 13°48′ Scorpio | Direct |
| Mars | 8°11′ Virgo | Direct |
| Jupiter | 26°54′ Leo | Retrograde |
| Saturn | 8°02′ Aries | Direct |
| Uranus | 2°38′ Gemini | Retrograde |
| Neptune | 1°38′ Aries | Direct |
| Pluto | 4°04′ Aquarius | Direct |
All times are UTC. In the Americas the local date can be a day earlier; in Asia and Australia a day later.
Quick answers
What time is the winter solstice 2026?
The exact moment is Dec 21, 2026 · 20:50 UTC. That is 3:50 PM EST in New York, 12:50 PM PST in Los Angeles and 8:50 PM GMT in London. In Sydney it is already Tuesday, December 22 at 7:50 AM GMT+11, and in Auckland Tuesday, December 22 at 9:50 AM GMT+13.
When is Yule 2026?
Most modern Pagans keep Yule on the solstice itself, Monday, December 21, 2026, with the Sun reaching 0° Capricorn at 20:50 UTC. Some celebrate from sunset on the 20th or keep twelve nights from the solstice. Historically, the Anglo-Saxon and Norse midwinter feasts did not follow the astronomical moment; they followed lunar months and later the Christmas calendar.
When does the Sun go into Capricorn in 2026?
At the solstice: Dec 21, 2026 · 20:50 UTC. In the tropical zodiac the December solstice and the Sun's entry into Capricorn are the same instant by definition. In 2027 it happens on Dec 22, 2027 · 02:42 UTC.
When is the winter solstice 2026 in Australia?
Australia's winter solstice in 2026 was in June: Sunday, June 21 at 6:24 PM GMT+10 in Sydney. The next one is Tuesday, June 22 at 12:10 AM GMT+10. The December 2026 solstice, Tuesday, December 22 at 7:50 AM GMT+11 in Sydney, is Australia's summer solstice and longest day: 14 hours 25 minutes of daylight in Sydney and 14 hours 47 minutes in Melbourne.
Is December 21 the shortest day of 2026?
North of the equator, yes. London gets 7 hours 50 minutes of daylight on the solstice and New York 9 hours 15 minutes. The earliest sunset comes a little before it (Dec 7 in New York) and the latest sunrise a little after (Jan 4).
When was Saturnalia, and is it the origin of Christmas?
Saturnalia began on December 17 and by the late Republic ran for several days. It shared customs such as feasting, gifts and candles with later midwinter celebrations, but historians caution against a simple straight line from Saturnalia to Christmas. The earliest record of December 25 as Christ's birthday is the Roman Chronograph of 354, which also lists the birthday of the Unconquered Sun on that date.
What does the winter solstice mean in astrology?
It is the Capricorn ingress, one of the four cardinal points of the tropical year. Astrologers traditionally read it as the start of a season about structure, long effort and what you build to last. Some cast a chart for the moment as a forecast for the quarter. It is a lens for reflection, not a prediction.
