Monday, December 21, 2009

Winter Begins-Arctic People Cheer

I don't know how cheerful they get over this but Fairbanks has "bottomed out" on their shortest day.  So now the daylight will soon start to increase until they reach the summer solstice.

Today the stats are:  Sunrise 10:59, Sunset 2:41 (3 hrs 42 min of daylight)

Tomorrow the stats are:  Sunrise 11:00, Sunset 2:42 (3 hours 42 min of daylight)

You may ask "why is the sunrise still getting later"?  Actually, this happens with us here in upstate NY too.  Our sunsets have already "turned around" but our sunrises will keep getting later right into January.  We never noticed that sunrises and sunsets never increase and decrease "evenly" until we owned chickens.  Instead, sunset will increase or decrease for a while, then stay stable while the sunset advances and retreats.  And then vice-versa.

I'm not a scientist so don't ask me why.

Meanwhile, up above the arctic circle in Svalbard, Norway, it is fully dark and will continue to be for months longer.  Alas.
 
 

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