Posted by Winter Solstice is upon us. Normally I would think of this as a relief and that hours of sunlight will begin to improve moving forward. But, it never really seems that way, especially in the depths of rainy February.
Are days going to start to get longer right away?
Not really.
Right now in Seattle we only have 8 hours and 25 minutes of sunlight. And the curve is not very steep for improvement.
For the first few weeks after the solstice, days get longer by only 30 seconds or so. Then, the pace starts to accelerate, and we gain 2-3 minutes per day pretty quickly.
Where do we gain the extra time? At night or early morning?
The good news is that although we don’t gain very much time in December and early January, it’s almost all at night.
In the first 30 days after the Solstice, we gain 30 minutes at night, but only 5 minutes in the morning (look at the flat red line). I’ll definitely take the longer evenings.
Note: The jump in March is Daylight savings