"The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours. . . ."
William Wordsworth, 1802
We can put politics aside for one day and reflect, as Wordsworth suggested, on the natural world.
Today is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
In Medford, Oregon, just north of the 42nd degree of latitude, the day length is 9:04:48; nine hours, four minutes, and 48 seconds. Tomorrow it will be 9:04:49, one second longer. The day after it will be another four seconds longer. If you aren't noticing much difference in the length of days about now, you aren't imagining it. It is real. For 25 days, from December 9 (9:09:42) through January 2 (also 9:09:42) day-length fluctuates within a 5 minute band.
Boston, Massachusetts is at almost exactly the same latitude, and its day length is similar: 9:04:35 today, with the same five minute, plus or minus spread of day lengths, again from December 9 through January 2.
Sunset times on one's clock differ because of where a place is within a time zone band. The sun sets in Medford at 4:42 p.m. Pacific Time but it happens much earlier in Boston, at 4:14 p.m. Eastern Time.
For comparison, Miami, which is closer to the equator, has less fluctuation in the lengths of days through the seasons. Miami will have 10:31:48 in daylight hours, almost an hour and a half more than Medford or Boston. The day length will be within that five-minute plus-or-minus spread for 33 days in Miami.
This pattern is reversed at the summer solstice. Miami has 13 hours and 30 minutes of daylight (13:30) while Medford and Boston have an hour and 46 minutes more: Medford with 15:16:50: Boston with 15:17:04.
Day lengths are not intuitive unless one thinks hard about spheres and what one may remember about tangents from high school math. In Medford and Boston, with a difference in day length between midwinter and midsummer of six hours and 10 minutes, the days need to allocate those 370 minutes over 183 days. In midwinter or midsummer the day lengths are nearly flat for a full month. The time is made up at the at the equinoxes. Day length in March changes almost 3 minutes per day. The shoulder-months of February and April, and of August and October have daylight gains and losses of over two and a half minutes.
Sunset times might break into our conscious observations because we are awake and doing time-sensitive things like leaving work, making dinner, and watching scheduled shows on TV. Sunset in Boston is at 5:33 on March 1 and 7:08 on March 31. Sunset changes from 6:02 p.m. to 7:36 p.m. during March in Medford. A big difference.
Wordsworth wrote about the alienating effect of the Industrial Revolution gathering steam around him in England. He thought "we were giving our hearts away, a sordid boon!" Get your sanity and soul back, he said. Observe nature.
This is the era of screens: The desktop screen where I am typing now, my laptops, I-pads, phone, the TV. My cars have screens along with warnings not to look at them. Look at the road instead, it warns. Good idea.
Notice nature. One way to do that is to plant a garden. We don't need the produce as much as we need the time in nature. Prepare now. Buy seeds. The days are getting longer.
Note: all times shown are standard time. There are multiple daylight/sunset sites. Here is one. Here is another.
Peter, how fun to read your supremely detailed explanation of why I am so looking forward to tomorrow knowing that the day will be longer, even by one second. Having lived in different parts of the country, I have been aware of differences in timing but had no idea about the extent of them in some cases. Thank you for making my shortest day an enjoyable one!
My brother-in-law lives in Bali which is practically right on the equator. Sunrise and sunset (7 a.m. and 7 p.m.) vary only five minutes for the entire year. Showed me a whole new meaning for the word "regularity."