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:
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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
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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:
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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
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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:
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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
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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.
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.
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/