Explaining weather: Solar angles

AUSTIN, Texas - As we approach spring, temperatures are definitely warming up. You might notice the sun feels warmer, too. That's because of something called, the solar angle.

Winter is obviously colder than summer. Average highs for Austin are around 62 degrees for the coldest part of winter and about 100 degrees in the hottest part of summer. That blazing summer sun easily causes sun burns and bakes anything left out in it. 

By contrast, the sun just feels weaker during the winter months. Even direct sunlight just doesn't feel quite as warm as it does in the summer. Obviously, the sun isn't dimming, it's just traveling through more atmosphere, and that is due to the solar angle. 

The solar angle is the angle the sun's light hits the ground. This angle matters because a higher angle will result in much less air that the sunlight has to travel through before reaching the ground. It might not seem like a big deal, but the earth's atmosphere scatters a lot of light energy away from the sun's rays. That's why in July the sun is just brutally hot, but in the dead of winter it's nice and warm. 

In Austin, the sun's angle differs by about 47 degrees. That doesn't sound like a huge difference, but it puts the sun almost directly overhead at noon and in the middle of the southern sky. That makes the sun feel much more powerful in the summer than in the winter. 

That angle also means the summer sun's rays have to travel through 42.5 fewer miles of air than in the winter. That's why the sun is so much more powerful in July than in January. 

Solar angle also has a direct impact on uv index. The sun's rays start to become dangerous to skin damage in April as the solar angle rises and stay dangerous until October. 

The higher the solar angle, the more dangerous the uv index will be since there is much less atmosphere to dissipate the sun's UV rays. 

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