The changing daylight hours thread

[damianslaw]

Tomorrow marks the latest sunrise of the year, 08:34, then a painfully slow climb, but its a positive. 

[chilly milly]

Wow, sunrise at 8:08am for us.

[*Stormforce~beka*]

2 hours ago, Don said:

Oh I see!!  

Up at 8.15am?  Glad I don't own any of the little buggers!! 

Oh they get themselves up! I'm still tucked up in bed then Automatic door

[Dangerous55019]

Hello everyone.

Well it’s been over a week since the winter solstice, and almost two weeks since the evenings started to get lighter… It’s now 16:22 here in North East Wales, and I have to say that the evenings are noticeably lighter than they were only a couple of weeks ago! 
 

The mornings don’t start getting lighter for me until the 1st January… So until Sunday my sunrise time is 08:26.

[lassie23]

14 minutes ago, Dangerous55019 said:

Hello everyone.

Well it’s been over a week since the winter solstice, and almost two weeks since the evenings started to get lighter… It’s now 16:22 here in North East Wales, and I have to say that the evenings are noticeably lighter than they were only a couple of weeks ago! 
 

The mornings don’t start getting lighter for me until the 1st January… So until Sunday my sunrise time is 08:26.

It will be 41 degrees before you know it. Happy new year.

[Summer8906]

It's very noticeable now that it's lighter at 4pm than it is at 8am, while a month ago the reverse was true.

The journey back to a more sensible timezone, and later solar noon, is beginning. So much so that the clocks "naturally" go forward by around 30 minutes, or slightly more, between early Nov and early Feb; 4pm in early Nov is equivalent to 7.30am in terms of light level, whereas by early Feb, 4pm is equivalent to 8.40am which is much more sensible.

Due to benign weather today, slightly more daylight in the later afternoon was detectable. I am sure it was brighter twilight at around 5pm than of late. It's only about seven minutes of extra afternoon daylight I think, but strangely it's enough to notice a difference.

Once we get into Jan it's at least one minute a day, and IIRC, sunset advances from 4.10pm to 4.55pm by the end of the month, quite a considerable gain; in fact sunset on Jan 31 will be later than on the last Sunday in October.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

2 hours ago, lassie23 said:

It will be 41 degrees before you know it. Happy new year.

Knowing what the past 12 months have been like, we're probably more likely to get a 41C max than a 41F max in 2023!

Edited December 29, 2022 by Summer8906

[damianslaw]

2 hours ago, Summer8906 said:

It's very noticeable now that it's lighter at 4pm than it is at 8am, while a month ago the reverse was true.

The journey back to a more sensible timezone, and later solar noon, is beginning. So much so that the clocks "naturally" go forward by around 30 minutes, or slightly more, between early Nov and early Feb; 4pm in early Nov is equivalent to 7.30am in terms of light level, whereas by early Feb, 4pm is equivalent to 8.40am which is much more sensible.

Due to benign weather today, slightly more daylight in the later afternoon was detectable. I am sure it was brighter twilight at around 5pm than of late. It's only about seven minutes of extra afternoon daylight I think, but strangely it's enough to notice a difference.

Once we get into Jan it's at least one minute a day, and IIRC, sunset advances from 4.10pm to 4.55pm by the end of the month, quite a considerable gain; in fact sunset on Jan 31 will be later than on the last Sunday in October.

Yes thanks to brighter skies this afternoon, I also noticed a bit more light around and it seemed to get darker later - this wouldn't be the case had it been a wet overcast grey sky as last 2 days. We do see a much more marked increase in light levels through January, but it takes until the end of the month to really note the lengthening daylight, largely because we tend to see more often than not alot of grey overcast weather. The mornings though - gosh they take until February to really start lightening up again. In terms of feel, the first week of January tends to be the 'low point' even though we have long past the shortist day, largely because of the after the effect of christmas and the sense of sluggishness that takes hold, everything seems to stay on hold, a time to hibernate.

Edited December 29, 2022 by damianslaw

[Sunny76]

Meh, even with the gaining of daylight from now, it still feels like a long slog until at least the middle of February. 
 

For me, it doesn’t really get better until the evenings are light beyond 6pm, as that’s when the day actually feels longer and after work doesn’t already feel like 10pm lol.

[RJBingham]

Latest sunrise  done

all heading in the right direction now

month after next is spring 

[Sunny76]

I don’t agree. For me, we’ve now entered the most depressing time of the year. January and February are dreary months.

[Maz]

4 hours ago, Sunny76 said:

I don’t agree. For me, we’ve now entered the most depressing time of the year. January and February are dreary months.

They are.  But the end of February has far more light than the start of January.  It is all about the direction of travel.

[Sunny76]

25 minutes ago, Maz said:

They are.  But the end of February has far more light than the start of January.  It is all about the direction of travel.

Yeah I know what you mean, but the real good feeling doesn’t really kick in until March time for me. I still like elements of winter, but it’s just the dark and damp stuff can still make things miserable between now and March.

[kold weather]

7 hours ago, Sunny76 said:

I don’t agree. For me, we’ve now entered the most depressing time of the year. January and February are dreary months.

I find January a very tough month due to just how dark the mornings are. It's still going to be several weeks before we start to see any notable differences.

Interestingly the evening are starting to feel a little longer. Even yesterday with fair amount of cloud cover still had usable light at 4.20. We'd have not had that a few weeks ago with that level of cloud much after 4pm, yet alone 4.20.

Things really start to speed up in the next couple of weeks. Soon be light still at 5pm, especially on sunnier afternoons.

[cheeky_monkey]

On 02/01/2023 at 02:18, RJBingham said:

Latest sunrise  done

all heading in the right direction now

month after next is spring 

latest sunrise for my location is today...then its roll on spring

[Summer8906]

22 hours ago, Maz said:

They are.  But the end of February has far more light than the start of January.  It is all about the direction of travel.

Even the start of February has a good deal more daylight. Plus the second half of February often offers synoptics which produce reasonable amounts of sunshine, even the Atlantic setups tend to get sunnier. I remember leaving work at the normal time on the "Eunice" day and it was really quite bright. Really dull Februaries are notable for their relative rarity, for example, 2010 and 2020.

Remember the closest equivalent to February in the autumn half of the year is October. And while October has its moments, it's generally not really, really gloomy.

Edited January 3, 2023 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

Generally the daylight has been improving a little the past few days, particularly yesterday. Yesterday produced visible sunlight beyond 4pm, one of the earliest occasions I can remember (and a sign of how cloudy early January normally is).

However this afternoon is desperately gloomy, gloomier even than most of the cloudy and damp evenings of late, and perhaps the gloomiest afternoon since December 19th. Must be a much nastier frontal system than those that have prevailed during the last two weeks. Certainly New Years Day afternoon, which was also damp and cloudy, seemed to be significantly lighter.

Edited January 3, 2023 by Summer8906

[Scuba steve]

I’ve noticed it tonight probably 10 mins lighter in the evening 

[Cheshire Freeze]

Personally I find the evenings drawing out depressing. Not even seen any snow yet. Plus, last summer was a complete slog, the worst summer I’ve lived through so far, by far.

[Summer8906]

On 30/12/2022 at 12:45, Sunny76 said:

Meh, even with the gaining of daylight from now, it still feels like a long slog until at least the middle of February. 
 

For me, it doesn’t really get better until the evenings are light beyond 6pm, as that’s when the day actually feels longer and after work doesn’t already feel like 10pm lol.

For me 5pm is the threshold, possibly because it means I return from work in the light, which is generally the case for the whole of February.

It's also why the clocks going back at the end of Oct is so grim, you suddenly get thrust into the darkest phase of the year just weeks after it was still light at 7pm.

4 minutes ago, CreweCold said:

Personally I find the evenings drawing out depressing. Not even seen any snow yet. Plus, last summer was a complete slog, the worst summer I’ve lived through so far, by far.

Mind you last summer we saw the nights drawing in before we saw any real, sustained heat - so applying the same logic in reverse, plenty of time for snow yet. Also spring is notable for long days but relatively cool temps, so a while yet before it gets uncomfortably warm!

Edited January 3, 2023 by Summer8906

[RJBingham]

I'll be out of the U.K for most of February, sun will be setting around 40 minutes later by the time we get back, lovely. 

[KTtom]

Must admit, if we could just have a couple of hours extra daylight in January then I would be happy whatever the day throws at us...a day like today is totally misery..wind and rain with lights on all day!

[damianslaw]

Despite light levels slowly increasing, we have plumbed the depths of low light today thanks to incessant rain and low cloud - no natural light whatsoever, and dusk descended by half 3... a dark January day, only way is up! Such days in early-mid Dec would be even worse!

[damianslaw]

2 hours ago, KTtom said:

Must admit, if we could just have a couple of hours extra daylight in January then I would be happy whatever the day throws at us...a day like today is totally misery..wind and rain with lights on all day!

True hibernation weather - we should all just hibernate first 2 weeks of January - why New Year arrives at the worse point in the year weatherwise makes it difficult to think positively, much better if it was the 1 February at least and depths of winter behind us rather than still in front of us.

[Sunny76]

18 hours ago, Summer8906 said:

For me 5pm is the threshold, possibly because it means I return from work in the light, which is generally the case for the whole of February.

It's also why the clocks going back at the end of Oct is so grim, you suddenly get thrust into the darkest phase of the year just weeks after it was still light at 7pm.

Mind you last summer we saw the nights drawing in before we saw any real, sustained heat - so applying the same logic in reverse, plenty of time for snow yet. Also spring is notable for long days but relatively cool temps, so a while yet before it gets uncomfortably warm!

This.

It never gets uncomfortably warm until around late May or early June. 
 

You might get some early heat in April or early May, but it’s never too hot and the air is usually still cool or mild at night. 

17 hours ago, RJBingham said:

I'll be out of the U.K for most of February, sun will be setting around 40 minutes later by the time we get back, lovely. 

Have fun