What Is The Summer Solstice? And How To Celebrate It For 2025

And, in some countries, the beginning of the seasons is determined by average temperatures rather than fixed dates or astronomical events. According to the astronomical definition, the start of summer falls on the summer solstice. In the Northern Hemisphere, it’s the June solstice; south of the equator, it is the solstice in December. In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice is in June; south of the equator, it is in December. In Sweden, midsummer celebrations rooted in paganism are the highlight of the year for many.

June 22 solstices are rare—the last June 22 solstice took place in 1975, and there won’t be another one until 2203. Initially, the naming arose from observations of how the Sun’s apparent path across the sky changes slightly from one day to the next, which is caused by the same process as the subsolar point’s movement described above. These key points in the year, along with the equinoxes, help to determine the seasons on Earth. Our Earth rotates on its axis once each day, producing the cycle of day and night. In India, mass yoga sessions take place, drawing hundreds of thousands of participants.

As TIME previously reported, it is said that the summer solstice was when Adiyogi, the first yogi, met his disciples. Historically, the United Nations has timed International Yoga Day to the summer solstice. This year, the summer solstice corresponds with a record heat wave in many parts of the U.S., so check out TIME’s guide to staying safe.

Summer Solstice 2025: When Does Summer Start?

The December solstice is the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and the summer solstice in the Southern. Archaeologists have also discovered the remains of an astronomical observatory in a long-buried Maya city in Guatemala, in which the buildings were designed to align with the sun during the solstices. During such times, the city’s populace gathered at the observatory to watch as their king appeared to command the heavens. Summer beckons us all year long with the promise of swimming pools, ice cream trucks, and relaxing in the shade. For the Northern Hemisphere, the official summer season starts on June 20 or 21, depending on where you live, with the arrival of the summer solstice.

• “Midsummer” refers to the various summer solstice traditions and festivals of European origin.
• Because this holiday is all about light and blooming, find ways to infuse your space with brightness and nature.
• When the sun rises on the longest day of the year, the sun’s rays align with Stonehenge’s Heel Stone.
• Learn how to make your own solstice and equinox “suntrack” season model with NASA and the Stanford Solar Center.
• The point at which the curves of the figure eight intersect is the equinox, which is when day and night are roughly equal in length.

But ‘Egyptian Stonehenge’ is the earliest indication people knew about summer solstice

People in this hemisphere might notice that the sun is very high in the sky at noon. The exact opposite is true in the Southern Hemisphere, which experiences its winter solstice on the same day; at the South Pole, the sun will not rise. At Stonehenge in the U.K., the sun rises behind the ancient entrance to a stone circle and “the sunlight is channeled into the center of the monument,” the BBC reported. Researchers believe that solstices have been celebrated at Stonehenge for thousands of years. While the sun always rises in the east and sets in the west, it appears higher or lower in the sky throughout the year, depending on the season. Around the solstices, the sun reaches its apparent highest and lowest point in the sky.

What Is The Summer Solstice? And How To Celebrate It For 2025

The solstices (as well as the equinoxes) mark the middle of the seasons in East Asian calendars. Here, the Chinese character 至 means “extreme”, so the terms for the solstices directly signify the summits of summer and winter. Because of the variation in the rate at which the sun’s right ascension changes, the days of longest and shortest daylight do not coincide with the solstices for locations very close to the equator. At the equator, the longest day is around 23 the summer solstice December and the shortest around 16 September (see graph). Inside the Arctic or Antarctic Circles the sun is up all the time for days or even months.

Longest day of the 2025 nears. What to know ahead of summer solstice.

• The Fremont Solstice Parade takes place every summer solstice in Fremont, Seattle, Washington in the United States.
• Perhaps the most famous midwinter celebration is the Saturnalia of Ancient Rome.
• “Solstice reminds me that the Earth gives in abundance to all without reservation or hesitation,” says Jill Brown, a certified evolutionary astrologer and owner of Eight Stars Astrology.
• Seasonal lag is caused by Earth’s water, which covers about 70% of the planet’s surface and soaks up a lot of the heat, meaning it takes longer to heat up the land.

In Paganism and Wicca, Midsummer is celebrated with a festival known as Litha. In ancient Europe, the festival involved rolling giant wheels lit on fire into bodies of water to symbolize the balance between fire and water. It’s easy to miss — don’t pay attention (or read an almanac) and you’ll never realize that, starting in mid to late June, the sunlight has peaked.

Celebrations in ancient China included harvest rituals and ancestral worship ceremonies, while some Native American tribes performed solstice rituals like the ceremonial sun dance of the Sioux. The positioning of the Earth during the Summer Solstice causes the sun’s light to hit the Tropic of Cancer at a 90 degree angle. The angle of the sun’s rays over the Earth at this time gives the North Pole 24 hours of sunlight, while the South Pole remains dark for 24 hours (signifying the Southern Hemisphere’s Winter Solstice).

solar eclipse

An analemma is a narrow, figure-8 shaped pattern made by tracking the position of the sun over the course of a year from a fixed time and place. Earth’s solstices are largely marked by the transition of the subsolar point across the tropics. As a result, areas near Earth’s Equator experience relatively constant sunlight and little solstice variation. The Equator, at 0° latitude, receives a maximum intensity of the sun’s rays all year.

Average temperatures continue to climb until the sun drops lower in the sky. While the effect is evident in a daily temperature plot, it is more readily apparent by looking at changes in the monthly average temperature. In Cleveland, July averages 3.3°F degrees higher than June, with August also warmer than June by 2.8°F, even though the length of days in August is considerably less than the length of days in June. In the southern tip of South America, the Mapuche people celebrate We Tripantu (the New Year) a few days after the northern solstice, on 24 June. Further north, the Atacama people formerly celebrated this date with a noise festival, to call the Sun back. A celebration occurs at sunrise, when the sun shines directly through the Gate of the Sun in Tiwanaku.

Summer lasts an average of 93.6 days in the Northern Hemisphere and an average of 89 days in the Southern Hemisphere, according to timeanddate.com. The Earth does not move at a constant speed in its elliptical orbit, so the seasons are not of equal length. On average, summer lasts for 93.6 days in the Northern Hemisphere and 89.0 days in the Southern Hemisphere. Astronomical summer begins at the summer solstice, which is the longest day of the year. This means days get shorter during summer—very slowly at first, but at ever-larger daily intervals as the September equinox approaches, heralding the start of fall. Meteorologists use a different method of defining the first day of summer.