Today is Wednesday, the 31st of December of 2025
December 31 is the 365th day of the year
78 days until spring begins
Sunrise at 7:25:10 am
and sunset will be at 5:01:50 pm.
We will have 9 hours and 36 minutes of daylight
The solar transit will be at 12:13:30 pm.
Water temperature in San Francisco Bay today is 53.4°F.
The first low tide was at 12:49 am at 2.89 feet
The first high tide will be at 7:02 am at 6.96 feet
The next low tide will be this afternoon at 2:29 pm at -1.01 feet
and the final high tide at Ocean Beach will be tonight at 9:37 pm at 4.7 feet
The Moon is currently 88.2 % visible
It's a Waxing Gibbous moon
We'll have a Full Moon in 3 days on Saturday the 3rd of January of 2026 at 2:03 am
The January full moon is called the Wolf Moon
The howling of wolves was often heard at this time of year.
It was traditionally thought that wolves howled due to hunger,
but we now know that wolves use howls to define territory,
locate pack members,
reinforce social bonds,
and gather for hunting.
European settlers may have used the term “Wolf Moon” even before they came to North America.
This moon is also called the Center Moon, from the Assiniboine people.
The Cree names of Cold Moon and Frost Exploding Moon
The Algonquin name is the Freeze Up Moon.
The Dakota names this full moon Severe Moon and Hard Moon
Other names for this time include Canada Goose Moon by the Tlingit
Great Moon by the Cree
Greetings Moon by the Wester n Abenaki
and The Spirit Moon by the Oji bwe
Today is....
The seventh of the Twelve Days of Christmas
You're supposed to gift your True Love 7 Swans a-Swimming etc etc
Today is also The sixth and penultimate day of Kwanzaa
Today's principle is Kuumba or Creativity
New Year's Eve
sometimes called Amateur Night
First Night
Make Up Your Mind Day
National Champagne Day
No Interruptions Day
One Voice Day
Universal Hour of Peace Day
Unlucky Day
World Peace Meditation Day
Today is also....
The first day of Hogmanay or "Auld Year's Night" in Scotland
International Solidarity Day of Azerbaijanis
Last Day of the Year or Bisperás ng Bagong Taón, special holiday between Rizal Day and New Year's Day (Philippines)
Novy God Eve in Russia
Ōmisoka in Japan
If today is your birthday, Happy Birthday To You! You can be a designated driver tonight for....
1869 – Henri Matisse, French painter and sculptor (died 1954)
1880 – George Marshall, American general and politician, 50th United States Secretary of State (died 1959)
1899 – Silvestre Revueltas, Mexican violinist, composer, and conductor (died 1940)
1908 – Simon Wiesenthal, Ukrainian-Austrian Nazi hunter and author (died 2005)
1930 – Odetta, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actress (died 2008)
1959 – Val Kilmer, American actor (died 2025)
1968 – Junot Diaz, Dominican-born American novelist, short story writer, and essayist
1977 – Psy, South Korean rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer
....and on this day in history....
1879 – Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
1907 – The first ever ball drop in Times Square.
1955 – General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year.
1961 – RTÉ, Ireland's state broadcaster, launches its first national television service.
1983 – The AT&T Bell System is broken up by the United States Government.
1983 – Benjamin Ward is appointed New York City Police Department's first ever African American police commissioner.
1991 – All official Soviet Union institutions have ceased operations by this date, five days after the Soviet Union is officially dissolved.
1992 – Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved in what is dubbed by media as the Velvet Divorce, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.
1994 – This date is skipped altogether in Kiribati as the Phoenix Islands and Line Islands change time zones from UTC−11:00 to UTC+13:00 and UTC−10:00 to UTC+14:00, respectively.
1995 – The final comic of Calvin and Hobbes is published.
1999 – The first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President and successor.
1999 – The U.S. government hands control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties.
2019 – The World Health Organization is informed of cases of pneumonia with an unknown cause, detected in Wuhan.[24] This later turned out to be COVID-19, the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic.
