Anyone and anything standing exactly straight-upright at 12:28 today did not cast a shadow for a few minutes. The sun was exactly overhead at 90 degrees above sea level in any direction.
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| Standing completely on my own shadow during the Lahaina Noon. |
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| Ernie painting - notice the shadow is directly under him during Lahaina Noon |
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| Just a moment or two to go - the street light pole is truly vertical and is not casting a shadow. The shadow to the right is from the horizontal lamp holding bracket. |
This happens out here twice a year. The next one will be on July 15th at 12:37 PM here in Honolulu (according to the local newspaper) as the sun retreats from the Summer solstice (the longest day in the earth's orbit around the sun each year). Other cities on other islands will have their Lahaina Noon on different dates and slightly different times depending on their latitude.
I used our street corner sign as an experiment - which revealed that the sign pole is slightly off of true vertical.
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| The shadow reveals that the pole is slightly off vertical. |
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| Lahaina Noon approaching - but the pole is off true vertical ! |
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| The sun has moved past true vertical on our slightly tilted pole. |
The Hawaiian Islands are the only place in the United States where this phenomenon happens.
I am Deepanshu, an Astronomy, Solar and Shadow enthusiast. This article is really informative, detailed and so much thrilling to me. I live in Delhi which is at Latitude of 28.6 N, above Tropic of Cancer. So, sadly I never get a chance to experience Lahaina Noon, as the peak postion of Sun in Delhi is 84.84 degrees on June 21. But, I loved this gorgeous article. Thank You!
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