Utah Cold Despite Close Position Of Earth To The Sun

Utah Public Radio | By Kerry Bringhurst

Published January 3, 2019 at 4:02 PM MST

Patrick Wiggins is Utah's Solar System Ambassador for Utah and has been following China's landing on the far side of the moon.

Earlier this week, on January 2 around 10:19 p.m. MST, the Earth was as close to the sun as it will get this year. This might surprise many of us who are wondering why temperatures in Utah have plummeted to the below zero mark.

Patrick Wiggins is the JPL Solar System Ambassador to Utah for NASA. UPR was curious as to how our planet can be closest to the sun without warming us up some. So we called Wiggins and ask him what’s up with the position of the sun, among other things.

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Kerry Bringhurst

At 14-years-old, Kerry began working as a reporter for KVEL “The Hot One” in Vernal, Utah. Her radio news interests led her to Logan where she became news director for KBLQ while attending Utah State University. She graduated USU with a degree in Broadcast Journalism and spent the next few years working for Utah Public Radio. Leaving UPR in 1993 she spent the next 14 years as the full time mother of four boys before returning in 2007. Kerry and her husband Boyd reside in Nibley.

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