On Saturday only 11 days remained in all of 2025, but they were and are important days, and one of them falls on Sunday, the day of the solstice, the day that is generally accepted in the northern hemisphere as the start of winter.
On Saturday, Washington was five days from Christmas but only hours from the day when winter is formally, if sometimes grudgingly, accorded a place in the annual procession of the seasons.
But in many ways Saturday’s weather in the District seemed still to be clinging to the invigorating spirit of autumn.
In the District, particularly in the afternoon, Saturday could be described as chilly, but not unfriendly or aggressively unpleasant. It seemed in fact, to be relatively acceptable if not obviously so. It approached the threshold of winter, but did not cross it.
The skies were blue, clouds seemed sparse and confined to upper altitudes. Those fierce winds and gusts of as recently as Friday, winds that scoured and shook the area, seemed largely absent in the bright Saturday afternoon.
No longer hailing and howling from the wintry north, the winds reversed direction on Saturday afternoon to arrive from what is often described as the sunny south.
That was probably to the benefit of conditions in the District. Because the temperatures themselves did not seem symbols of balmy benevolence. As of 5 p.m., the high was 45 degrees. That was 3 degrees below the normal high for the District on the 20th of December.
The morning low was 4 degrees below freezing, at 28 degrees. That low was 6 below normal.
So on its face, Saturday probably could not be considered notably warm. But it probably gave little sign that winter loomed only hours away.
No law of nature or civilization decrees that wintry weather must arrive with the solstice. But it does qualify as the day of least daylight, and therefore of maximum darkness. The darkness suggests deprivation of the radiant power of the sun.
Of course, the solstice, to be precise, is not so much a day as it is a moment. The single moment at which the northern hemisphere tilts farthest from the sun on its 365-day voyage around it.
That moment by the laws and conventions of astronomy, geometry and the mechanics of orbits is 10:03 a.m. Sunday. So on Saturday, it was truly only hours away, and early enough so it might easily be missed by late sleepers.
However, they could assuage any regrets by looking forward to the next orbital milestone, the arrival of the spring equinox on March 20, a Friday.
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