June (summer) solstice is June 20, 21 or 22. Longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere shortest (winter solstice) day in Southern Hemisphere.
The summer solstice occurs when the tilt of a planet’s semi-axis, in either the northern or the southern hemisphere, is most inclined toward the star that it orbits. Earth’s maximum axial tilt toward the Sun is 23° 26′. This happens twice each year, at which times the Sun reaches its highest position in the sky as seen from the north or the south pole.
The summer solstice occurs during a hemisphere’s summer. This is the northern solstice in the northern hemisphere and the southern solstice in the southern hemisphere. Depending on the shift of the calendar, the summer solstice occurs some time between June 20 and June 22 in the northern hemisphere[2][3] and between December 20 and December 23 each year in the southern hemisphere.[4]
When on a geographic pole, the Sun reaches its greatest height, the moment of solstice, it can be noon only along that longitude which at that moment lies in the direction of the Sun from the pole. For other longitudes, it is not noon. Noon has either passed or has yet to come. Hence the notion of a solstice day is useful. The term is colloquially used like midsummer to refer to the day on which solstice occurs. The summer solstice day has the longest period of daylight – except in the polar regions, where daylight is continuous, from a few days to six months around the summer solstice.
It is to me a signal of plant vigor. Tomatoes are forming, blackberries are ripening, flowers are in bloom and my birthday is soon.
Suburbhomestead 