Winter Countdown

Astronomical winter starts at the December solstice, Monday, December 21, 2026, 3:50 PM on the US Eastern clock. It is one moment for the whole Earth, so the clock time depends on where you are:

Meteorological winter starts on Tuesday, December 1, 2026, 20 days before the December solstice, and runs for three whole months. DateMath takes the moment from the US Naval Observatory, in UTC to the minute, and the countdown above shows it in your own time zone.

The December solstice, Monday, December 21, 2026, comes a few days before Christmas, so the Christmas countdown and the winter countdown end within a week of each other. Winter lasts until the March equinox, March 20, 2027.

Winter 2026 runs from the December solstice to the March equinox, Saturday, March 20, 2027, 4:25 PM Eastern Time: 89 days on the Eastern calendar, or 88.98 days of 24 hours. Summer is the longest season in the Northern Hemisphere and winter the shortest, because Earth moves slowest when it is farthest from the Sun, in early July.

The December solstice in the coming years, from the US Naval Observatory's table:

The moment comes about 6 hours later each year and a leap year pulls it back by a day, so the date moves between two or three days of the month. The holidays by date tool lists every equinox and solstice on its date.

DateMath counts to the moment of the equinox or solstice, from the US Naval Observatory's table in UTC to the minute. That moment is the same everywhere, so the countdown reaches zero at once in every time zone, and DateMath shows it on your device's clock. Astronomical seasons start at these moments; meteorological seasons start on the 1st of March, June, September and December. The seasons are the Northern Hemisphere's; south of the equator they are reversed.

• Equinoxes and solstices. DateMath takes the moment of each equinox and solstice from the US Naval Observatory's table, in UTC to the minute. The holidays by date tool dates it on the US Eastern clock, and the season countdown shows it on your own clock. Near midnight the date differs between time zones. Source: USNO Earth's Seasons.
• Your device's local time. DateMath's countdowns read the current time from your device and count to the target in your own time zone. In the US, the standard time zones are set by 15 U.S.C. 261 and daylight saving time by 15 U.S.C. 260a (from 2:00 AM on the second Sunday in March to 2:00 AM on the first Sunday in November); your device applies them. Source: 15 U.S.C. 261, 15 U.S.C. 260a.
• US federal holidays. DateMath skips the 11 annual holidays of 5 U.S.C. 6103 on the days they are observed for federal employees, as the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) lists them: a Saturday holiday on the Friday before, a Sunday holiday on the Monday after. Source: 5 U.S.C. 6103, OPM federal holidays.

DateMath's date math is tested against more than 100 cases worked out by hand. Every worked example and table on the site is computed with the same code the calculators run, so a page and its calculator can't disagree.