While the winter solstice (December 21) is the shortest day of the year, sunrise continues to get later until January 8-11. Starting tomorrow, sunrise will get earlier, initially by less than 1 minute per day, but the change will get more dramatic by March.
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Estimating Remaining Daylight
During the late afternoon, you can determine the remaining daylight on your fingers using this simple trick to measure the remaining daylight without a watch. Count the finger widths between the sun and the horizon. Each finger is equivalent to 15 minutes, with each hand totaling an hour. Source: http://www.pinterest.com/source/groovymatter.com/
