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Life, Travel and Technology for the Unconventionalist

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Fairbanks, Climate and Daylight

By Brandon Edward

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Punxsutawney Phil was right, six more weeks of winter.  But I imagine Phil has no groundhog concept of Alaska.  I think they should bring him to Fairbanks one year.  I’ve got my money on the “immortal” groundhog freezing to death inside of five minutes in that pseudo stump of his.  How do you say #@$!@#@ cold in groundhogese? The weather report around here indicates no days above 32 before spring gets underway.   I trust the groundhog about as much as the weather man.  They have a similar nonchalance about their job.

Its 3.6 degrees just shy of two o’clock in the afternoon, lows for tonight are predicted -10 to -20.  But the most interesting component of my frigid cold ‘meteor-astronomical’ situation is the change in daylight.    Here is a chart of today’s astronomy:
______________________________________________________

Wednesday      10 March 2010       Alaska Standard Time

SUN

Begin civil twilight       6:39 a.m.
Sunrise                    7:27 a.m.
Sun transit                1:01 p.m.
Sunset                     6:37 p.m.
End civil twilight         7:25 p.m.
Length of Daylight                     11:09

_______________________________________________________
Notice that the Sunset is at 6:37 pm and the overall length of daylight is 11 hours and 09 minutes.  Here is the same data from two months ago:
_______________________________________________________
Sunday 10 January 2010       Alaska Standard Time

SUN

Begin civil twilight       9:23 a.m.
Sunrise                   10:38 a.m.
Sun transit               12:59 p.m.
Sunset                     3:20 p.m.
End civil twilight         4:35 p.m.
Length of Daylight                     04:42
_______________________________________________________

We’ve gained 6 hours and 27 minutes of daylight in the last two months!  And here is the data for two months from today:
_______________________________________________________

Monday  10 May 2010       Alaska Standard Time

SUN

End civil twilight        12:23 a.m.
Begin civil twilight       3:11 a.m.
Sunrise                    4:45 a.m.
Sun transit                1:47 p.m.
Sunset                    10:52 p.m.
End civil twilight        12:31 a.m. on following day
Length of Day                         18:07
_______________________________________________________

Now here’s Albuquerque, New Mexico  for comparison:

Sunday   10 January 2010       Mountain Standard Time

SUN

Begin civil twilight       6:47 a.m.
Sunrise                    7:15 a.m.
Sun transit               12:14 p.m.
Sunset                     5:13 p.m.
End civil twilight         5:41 p.m.
Length of day                         9:58

Wednesday10 March 2010         Mountain Standard Time

SUN

Begin civil twilight       5:59 a.m.
Sunrise                    6:24 a.m.
Sun transit               12:17 p.m.
Sunset                     6:10 p.m.
End civil twilight         6:35 p.m.
Length of day                         11:46

Monday   10 May 2010           Mountain Daylight Time

SUN

Begin civil twilight       5:39 a.m.
Sunrise                    6:07 a.m.
Sun transit                1:03 p.m.
Sunset                     7:59 p.m.
End civil twilight         8:27 p.m.
Length of day                         13:53

Isn’t that wild!  The longest day here is June 24th where we will have 21 hours and 46 minutes between sunrise and sunset, constant light, dusk and dawn will blend.  Despite my grumblings about the cold the anticipation for summer is building.  Twenty four hours of light is something I have yet to experience and I’m definitely looking forward to it.

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Filed Under: Alaskan Adventures Tagged With: Alaska, climate, fairbanks

About Brandon Edward

Greetings, I am the bar keep of this fine establishment. In the tradition of a good bar keep I want to know what you think about the article you've just read and the service we're providing here at freewheelings. Can't find your particular brand of scotch? Maybe we have it in the back, just ask. Use the comments section below.

Comments

  1. Charles Compton says

    March 11, 2010 at 12:23 pm

    When I was a kid in Anchorage I remember being upset every year on the 4th of July because my parents wouldn’t let me stay up till midnight/1am to see the fireworks in the very brief sunset/sunrise.

    Reply
    • brandon says

      March 11, 2010 at 1:03 pm

      It’s funny you should say that. I was wondering while I was writing this post if they just did something else for the 4th in Alaska – maybe everyone gathers around and they shoot a canon at a precarious peak and cause an avalanche. ooooo – aaaaa That was all I could come up with. The length of day for the 4th of July is 21:09. By the way, the US naval observatory has a bunch of cool calculators for this sort of data: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/

      Reply

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