Early risers will grasp the winter solstice at 6:12 a.m., Friday, Dec. 21, that second in time when the North Pole is most distant from the sun, at 23. 5 degrees. It is a particularly good moment to celebrate, because what follows is the northern hemisphere's gradual tilt back toward the sun. Our days will get incrementally longer and by summer solstice on June 21, the skies won't truly darken until 10 p.m., or so.

On Dec. 21, the sun will rise at 7:08 a.m. and set at 4 p.m. but we won't be seeing much of the sun at all. Meteorologists are calling for powerful storm to move east, with snow over the northern part of New England and rain along the coast. A high wind warning has been issued for the coast, as a low-level jet streams north, bringing with it strong southeast winds right along the Midcoast with gusts up to 60 miles per hour. With the afternoon winds comes the possibility of power outages and downed trees.

The National Weather Service in Gray included interior Waldo County, higher terrain and Penobscot Bay in the warning, advising strong winds out of the southeast will build throughout the day. Offshore mariners may see hurricane-force gusts with wave heights reaching 20 feet, before winds shift around to the southwest and weaken.

Temperatures will be warming into the 40s for most areas, with low 50s right along the coast. Heavy rain will fall throughout the day, followed by a slow clearing and colder temperatures. Later over the weekend, winds will shift around to the north-northwest and it will get cold.

The solstice (the earliest arrival of winter, apparently, since 1896, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac) and a good storm coincides with the end of the world, as proposed by those watching the Mayan calendar come to an end. Huffington Post is maintaining a live blog about the the pending cataclysm, with posts coming in from across the globe.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), on the other hand, has gone to lengths to debunk this particular end of the world, and says:

"One of the most bizarre theories about 2012 has built up with very little attention to facts. This idea holds that a cosmic alignment of the sun, earth, the center of our galaxy — or perhaps the galaxy's thick dust clouds — on the winter solstice could for some unknown reason lead to destruction. Such alignments can occur but these are a regular occurrence and can cause no harm (and, indeed, will not even be at its closest alignment during the 2012 solstice.)

"The details are as follows: Viewed far from city lights, a glowing path called the Milky Way can be seen arching across the starry sky. This path is formed from the light of millions of stars we cannot see individually. It coincides with the mid plane of our galaxy, which is why our galaxy is also named the Milky Way.

"Thick dust clouds also populate the galaxy. And while infrared telescopes can see them clearly, our eyes detect these dark clouds only as irregular patches where they dim or block the Milky Way's faint glow. The most prominent dark lane stretches from the constellations Cygnus to Sagittarius and is often called the Great Rift, sometimes the Dark Rift.

"Another impressive feature of our galaxy lies unseen in Sagittarius: the galactic center, about 28,000 light-years away, which hosts a black hole weighing some four million times the sun's mass.

"The claim for 2012 links these two pieces of astronomical fact with a third — the position of the sun near the galactic center on Dec. 21, the winter solstice for the Northern Hemisphere — to produce something that makes no astronomical sense at all.

"As earth makes its way around the sun, the sun appears to move against the background stars, which is why the visible constellations slowly change with the seasons. On Dec. 21, 2012, the sun will pass about 6.6 degrees north of the galactic center — that's a distance that looks to the eye to be about 13 times the full moon's apparent size — and it's actually closer a couple of days earlier. There are different claims about why this bodes us ill, but they boil down to the coincidence of the solstice with the sun entering the Dark Rift somehow portending disaster or the mistaken notion that the sun and earth becoming aligned with the black hole in the galactic center allows some kind of massive gravitational pull on Earth."

The weather forecast, courtesy of the National Weather Service.

A powerful system continues to bring significant, widespread impacts in the form of blizzard conditions, severe thunderstorms, damaging winds and fire weather conditions to the central United States. Meanwhile, another storm is beginning to impact the Pacific Northwest and northern California, where heavy mountain snow and coastal flash flooding are possible through at least Thursday.

Friday Rain, mainly after 9 a.m. High near 50. Windy, with a east wind 20 to 25 mph increasing to 32 to 37 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 60 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100 percent. New precipitation amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible.

Friday Night Rain, mainly before midnight. Low around 36. Windy, with a southeast wind 24 to 29 mph becoming south 14 to 19 mph in the evening. Winds could gust as high as 41 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90 percent. New precipitation amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible.

Saturday Showers likely, mainly between 10am and 2pm. Cloudy, with a high near 43. Southwest wind 9 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.

Saturday Night A slight chance of rain showers, mixing with snow after midnight, then gradually ending. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 26. West wind 8 to 18 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20 percent.

Sunday Sunny, with a high near 38. Breezy.

Sunday Night Mostly clear, with a low around 17. Windy.

Monday Sunny, with a high near 32. Breezy.

Monday Night Partly cloudy, with a low around 17.

Christmas Day Mostly sunny, with a high near 28.

Tuesday Night Partly cloudy, with a low around 19.

Wednesday Sunny, with a high near 32.

Wednesday Night Partly cloudy, with a low around 22. Blustery.

Thursday A 30 percent chance of snow showers. Cloudy, with a high near 32. Breezy.