Sunrise, Sunset

Blog post 3 on the topic of sunlight was supposed to be the first (and only) one, but you know how I get . . .

The solar year has two big, fun words that everyone knows: solstace and equinox. You can wiki them up and get the specific Latin roots for them, but I remember it this way. Sol = sun and stace = stay, so Sol + stace = Sun-stay, i.e. the time of the year where the sun isn't moving in the sky. This is the time of year when it is either highest (summer) or lowest (winter). Then we have equi = equal and nox = night so, equinox = equal night (and day). It's the time of year when we've got about 12 hours of each. We passed the autumnal equinox about a week ago, which means this is the time of year where the length of the day is changing fastest. Also, up here in the north, the summer days are longer, the winter days are shorter, and in order to hit those times, the days have to change length even faster this time of year. Here's a few numbers for comparison between a few places that I've picked.

                           Midland, MI          St. George, UT          Tucson, AZ
Shortest Day             8:56                         9:37                       10:02
Longest Day            15:27                       14:43                      14:16
Fastest Change          3.1                          2.1                           1.7
   [min/day]

So, up here in the North, in the summer, we get nearly an hour more daylight than we used to get, and similarly nearly an hour less in the winter. These days I'm really feeling the effect of losing 3 minutes per day for the last week. I have to get up for work before it's light, and I can't go running after the girls go to bed, at least not without some sort of lights so I can see and be seen. I guess it's time to buckle down and get ready for winter!