That winter solstice visiting Greater Port Arthur at 10:28 Thursday morning will usher in what may be a mild winter, following a mild autumn. Autumn, we barely knew you.

Given the events of late summer, a little mild should serve us well.

Winter is upon us, from today into late morning March 20, beginning with this day that offers 10 hours and 13 minutes of sunlight. Not much, that, but pity Alaskans: Fairbanks will get 3 hours, 41 minutes of sun today; north of the Arctic Circle, none. Talk about your blues.

Residing at the Gulf of Mexico’s edge, we’ll enjoy more sunlight than our Yankee brethren today, in that the days shorten the farther north you travel, another advantage to Southern living.

Vox, a general interest news site with a mission to explain the news, says we have a winter solstice because the earth orbits the sun on a tilted axis. Between September and March, the Northern Hemisphere – include Jefferson County in that – gets less exposure to the sun. Wrap your mind around that.

Although this week marks days with the least sunshine, we’ve already had the earliest sunsets: 5:15 p.m. back on Dec 2. The latest sunrises, on Jan. 11-12, are to come. So is the genuinely cold weather, which generally falls in January and February.

We know, though, we can take comfort in a high temperature of 72 today, with a couple of more pleasant days to follow. Christmas may be more wintry-like, with lows in the low 40s, if you like that sort of thing. We can enjoy that holy day with warmer weather, too.

Montra Lockwood, a forecaster for The National Weather Service in Lake Charles, Louisiana, said we should expect warmer winter weather with “below normal rainfall.” No complaints.

“We may even get another wintry event,” she suggested, not unlike the snow that fell on Port Arthur and environs on Dec. 8. It left quickly enough, but gave people some reason for passing glee.

With barely a week left in 2017, Greater Port Arthur is likely to be the rainiest place in America this year. Given a choice, it’s a distinction we would have gladly declined.

“You got a year’s worth of rain in a week,” she said. No need to remind people here. We’ve lived through the ill effects of Hurricane and Tropical Storm Harvey through the mild autumn and will likely bear its effects through the mild spring. And then some.

Everybody complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it. That was the lament of a Hartford, Connecticut newspaper editor in the late 19^th century.

In these parts, we mark the seasons with more interest, and keep our eyes ever cast toward gray skies.