The changing daylight hours thread

[Summer8906]

14 minutes ago, cheeky_monkey said:

sunset here is already 7.50pm ..still light at 8.30pm 

No chance here.. before 7.50pm local time and pitch dark lol. In fact even after the clock changed, it'll won't be that late. The UK is (unfortunately IMO) on a very westerly timezone for its longitude. Few continental European cities have such dark evenings, though Berlin and Vienna are also on a westerly timezone and as a consequence also have disproportionately dark evenings for their longitude.

Pitch dark at 7pm too, still, if the weather is particularly overcast. (More normally, light is perceptible though).

Edited March 16, 2023 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

On 14/03/2023 at 19:57, Maz said:

Totally agree!  Drives my family mad when I notice absolutely everything - first green shots pushing up from bulbs, first buds on trees, first snowdrops/daffodils.  

I agree, I'm very switched on to the change of season.

Interestingly things are later (or, should I say, more normal) this year, compared to 2019 and especially 2020 and 2022. It's been generally a mild winter, but has featured a lot of frosts - I think this must have had a significant role in slowing things down.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Summer8906

[cheeky_monkey]

12 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

No chance here.. before 7.50pm local time and pitch dark lol. In fact even after the clock changed, it'll won't be that late. The UK is (unfortunately IMO) on a very westerly timezone for its longitude. Few continental European cities have such dark evenings, though Berlin and Vienna are also on a westerly timezone and as a consequence also have disproportionately dark evenings for their longitude.

Pitch dark at 7pm too, still, if the weather is particularly overcast. (More normally, light is perceptible though)

but you get the benefit of an earlier sunrise..im on  the same latitude as Manchester there is roughly a 30min difference between sunrise and sunsets times

[Summer8906]

6 minutes ago, cheeky_monkey said:

but you get the benefit of an earlier sunrise..im on  the same latitude as Manchester there is roughly a 30min difference between sunrise and sunsets times

Yeah I know, swings and roundabouts I guess. The mornings are very light already, almost summer-like (for a few days before the clock change, we get within an hour of the earliest sunrise in June), but IMO that's just wasted daylight, I'd prefer light at 7pm than 6am!

Edited March 16, 2023 by Summer8906

[SunSean]

Haven't noticed any change in the daylight hours since about mid February since its been 100% cloud cover since then. Hideous.

[*Stormforce~beka*]

5 hours ago, SunSean said:

Haven't noticed any change in the daylight hours since about mid February since its been 100% cloud cover since then. Hideous.

Same here due to cloud. It sucks. Like others have said I feel like we have actually gone back in time ...

[Don]

2 hours ago, *Stormforce~beka* said:

Same here due to cloud. It sucks. Like others have said I feel like we have actually gone back in time ...

Good as that means we are back in winter and might see some more snow!! 

[I remember Atlantic 252]

9 hours ago, SunSean said:

Haven't noticed any change in the daylight hours since about mid February since its been 100% cloud cover since then. Hideous.

horrible next Sunday, pitch dark at 6am, its just starting to get light

 

[cheeky_monkey]

i always thought the spring equinox was when equal 12hr day/night is..not so for my location sunrise and sunset are exactly 12 hrs apart today on 17th March 

[Sunny76]

1 hour ago, I remember Atlantic 252 said:

horrible next Sunday, pitch dark at 6am, its just starting to get light

 

It won’t last long though. It’s usually just pitch black for a couple of weeks, then the light creeps back in and it’s light at 5:30 by mid April.

For me, within the next 2-3 weeks we will lose the early morning darkness before 6am completely until mid August. Looking forward to the next 4 and a half months, especially for my security job on Sundays.

 

[Nick L]

1 hour ago, cheeky_monkey said:

i always thought the spring equinox was when equal 12hr day/night is..not so for my location sunrise and sunset are exactly 12 hrs apart today on 17th March 

The equilux is when the day and night are equal. The equinox is simply when the sun is directly over the equator. They're usually a few days apart for reasons I don't really understand!

[CJS_25]

The reason equilux is a few days before equinox is due to a couple of factors:

- the sun is not a point so the sunrise is measured when the top edge of it reaches above the horizon, even though it's central point is still below the horizon

- Also, the atmosphere refracts sunlight and so the sunlight bends and appears above the horizon a few minutes earlier

 

Am also waiting to appreciate much of the increased daylight.  When we finally get a sunny day, is going to be quite a surprise.  Hopefully soon, although doesn't look like it in the models.  Looking forward to light evenings again though!

[reef]

17 hours ago, Nick L said:

The equilux is when the day and night are equal. The equinox is simply when the sun is directly over the equator. They're usually a few days apart for reasons I don't really understand!

Its due to refraction. Essentially the sunlight is bent slightly so we get about 6 minutes of extra light at each end of the day. For this reason, the day length at the equinox is around 12 hours 12 minutes long.

[Dangerous55019]

For me the equilux is today.

So as of tomorrow we will officially have more daylight than darkness… Until September that is. 
 

The spring Equinox is on this coming Monday at 21:25!

But next Sunday in the wee small hours, the clocks go forward one hour!

Then it’ll be full steam ahead towards the second cross quarter day - Beltane… And then the summer solstice in June! 
 

Time marches on and all that. 

[Sun Chaser]

Noticing the lengthening days a lot now. Can't wait for an extra hour of light in the evenings from next Sunday!

Strangely I'm seeing a lot of talk about how nature is taking longer to bloom this year but this is the first year I can remember with spring blossom coming out in February... I saw my first on the 26th and yesterday the trees at the back of my garden began to flower, even earlier than last year (which was 21st March). Not sure why it's so early considering how frosty winter was and how dull March has been but I suppose a sunny February helped?

[Summer8906]

2 hours ago, plymsunshine said:

Noticing the lengthening days a lot now. Can't wait for an extra hour of light in the evenings from next Sunday!

Strangely I'm seeing a lot of talk about how nature is taking longer to bloom this year but this is the first year I can remember with spring blossom coming out in February... I saw my first on the 26th and yesterday the trees at the back of my garden began to flower, even earlier than last year (which was 21st March). Not sure why it's so early considering how frosty winter was and how dull March has been but I suppose a sunny February helped?

Definitely different here in south Hampshire, well behind 2020 and 2022 and even behind 2019.

Plum blossom peaked around last weekend, which is close to the long-term average, and started coming out mid February. In 2020 and 2022, the odd tree was starting to come out right at the end of January!

Things look "as they should be" for mid-March, for the moment.

Maybe the frosts here were more extensive and intense, certainly there were about 10 very frosty nights in Jan and a further 6 or 7 in the first half of Feb. These probably came at just the right time to prevent overly-early flowering.

Also Feb was generally cloudy here, except for a few days in the first half and a few again at the end.

That said, Jan 2022 had a fair few frosts but things were still silly-early last year. Feb had, IIRC, close to zero frosts though.

Edited March 18, 2023 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

On 17/03/2023 at 18:08, I remember Atlantic 252 said:

horrible next Sunday, pitch dark at 6am, its just starting to get light

 

But just think of the broad daylight at 7pm, and lingering daylight until around 8pm.

Mornings are too light for me right now. Waking up silly early...

 

[Summer8906]

On 17/03/2023 at 17:29, Don said:

Good as that means we are back in winter and might see some more snow!! 

I'd welcome a change to a northerly setup in all honesty. Might get snow, and critically, would almost certainly get more sun!

Isn't there some hints of the wind veering more NW-ly for the first week of BST, bringing in colder but brighter weather?

[damianslaw]

Yes the overcast grey late afternoon skies of the last 2 weeks has resulted limited notice in light level increase, however, there was one day this week Tuesday when the skies cleared markedly and the light lingered until 7pm whilst at the same time we had a good cover of snow, felt quite odd.

Just a week left on the darker side daytime wise, I'm not up early enough to notice light levels in the mornings.. 

Last week in winter mode.

[Nick L]

One grumble about the clock change this year is that I'm working day shifts over the weekend, an hour less in bed for me!

[reef]

2 hours ago, Nick L said:

One grumble about the clock change this year is that I'm working day shifts over the weekend, an hour less in bed for me!

I've actually lucked out this year and am on nights for the March clock change for the first time in 16 years. One less hour at work!

[Nick L]

20 minutes ago, reef said:

I've actually lucked out this year and am on nights for the March clock change for the first time in 16 years. One less hour at work!

I've never had that privilege! One year I was on nights for the clocks going back, then on days for when they went forward. I let my manager know of my disapproval 

[Earthshine]

Equilux is actually an approximation in many parts of the world.  It's calculated assuming refraction in a ICAO standard atmosphere (15°C, 1013 hPa, etc.).  In the presence of inversion layers and strong thermal gradients the refraction effect can be stronger, extending sunsets/sunrises by up to 30 seconds or so.  I did write some ray-tracing code that calculates the apparent position of the sun with a particular atmosphere (e.g. hot and dry, cold and humid, etc).  It assumes spherical symmetry so it will differ slightly from the true oblate spheroid earth.

Edited March 19, 2023 by Earthshine

[Azazel]

To my untrained eye, nature looks like it’s lagging behind here also.

There are two cherry blossom trees here that seem to bloom earlier than the others. They started to bloom a few weeks back but never really got going and have now died off by the looks of it. The other trees haven’t even attempted it yet.

[Summer8906]

Still pitch-dark at 7.20pm here, if it's cloudy - as tonight.

Hard to believe that this time next week it'll be broad daylight!

Having said that, darkness is coming quite suddenly at the moment, with a rapid transition from light to dark - typical I believe of the equinox. Even while still on GMT, I was struck how light it was earlier, between 5 and 6. Almost as if the clocks had gone on already.

Edited March 19, 2023 by Summer8906