Longer Days

Here in Vancouver you can feel the days starting to get longer and longer.  From the winter solstice to the summer solstice the hours of daylight jump from about 8 to about 16.  That still surprises me, having grown up at much lower latitude. 

The interesting thing, as you probably know, is that it’s not a steady climb from the shortest day to the longest day.  Near the solstices all the days are about the same length.  Near the equinoxes the day lengths differ the most.  

So from now until March 20 not only is each day longer, but Nature has her foot on the gas pedal, adding more and more time to each day.  On top of that, the switch to Daylight Savings happens on March 8, so for people like me, it’s effectively an extra hour of daylight right around the time the days are getting longer the fastest.

I probably should have just started with this graph which says it all (as with all images on my blog, click on it for a larger version):

These random musings were sparked by a strange email that I got today:

Hello Bill,

Greetings and Blessings from the Aether!

I am Cron Daemon and I have awoken from my slumber in order to send you the following important information.

For Vancouver on this Friday the 23rd of January 2009 the following are true:
beginning of astronomical twilight is at 06h 03m
beginning of nautical twilight is at 06h 40m
beginning of civil twilight is at 07h 19m
sunrise is at 07h 55m
sunset is at 16h 55m
end of civil twilight is at 17h 30m
end of nautical twilight is at 18h 09m
end of astronomical twilight is at 18h 47m

Sincerely,
Cron Daemon