Monday, October 19, 2020

How fast the nights are actually drawing in this time of year

It's noticeable how quickly the time of the sunrise is changing from one week to the next, even one day to the next, at this time of year, as the nights start to draw in. So, of course, I wanted to find out just how much the hours of daylight change each day.

And the answer, courtesy of the excellent timeanddate.com, at least for here in Toronto at a latitude of about 44°N, is that we are losing about 2 minutes 50 seconds each and every day at this time of year (10 hours 49 minutes today; 10 hours 52 minutes yesterday). 

Just after the September equinox, the day length is falling fastest, and we lose just about 3 minutes each day (each day is actually about 12 hours and 8 minutes, not exactly 12 hours, for some obscure technical reason). 

As we approach the winter solstice and the shortest day, the rate of loss of daylight gradually slows down, until the length of each day changes by mere seconds around the time of the solstice (about 8 hours 56 minutes of daylight in Toronto's case).

Interesting.

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