Bright thoughts on a dark day

Sunset over the South Reservoir in the Middlesex Fells. Photo (cc) 2022 by Dan Kennedy.

It’s snowing. We’re stuck in the house. And there are two and a half more months of winter left. So I thought I’d offer a little bit of hope today.

I recently learned that the earliest sunset of the year, 4:11 p.m., takes place on Dec. 7, even though the days keep getting shorter until Dec. 21, the first day of winter. Today is Jan. 7, and sunset will be at 4:27. That’s a 16-minute improvement — and you may have noticed recently that there’s at least some daylight now up until 5.

On Feb. 7, sunset will be at 5:05, and on March 7 it will be 5:44. And then, blessedly, the clocks move ahead once again. On March 10, sunset will be at 6:45.

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5 thoughts on “Bright thoughts on a dark day”

  1. As my friend never hesitates to remind others when they say “the days get shorter” – the days never get shorter, they are always 24 hours long. It’s the amount of daylight that lessens during certain times of the year.
    Yeah, he’s a blast at a party.

  2. One way to be less depressed about the length of winter and also align with the reality of life on Earth is to stop using astronomical events for deciding your seasons. They have nearly zero effect on the weather and climate.

    The sensible way to mark the seasons is based on the actual weather changes like meteorologists.
    Winter is December, January & February, so we have less than two months left of winter.

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