daylight hours

[Debbie]

Having just had the shortest /longest day of the yr (depending on which side of the world your on), I was wandering if those of you lucky enough to currently be in NZ could give me an idea of the hours of daylight in your variouse different locations. Via the net I can find numerious charts for hours of sun shine and some very high tech shipping pages which ,if I could decifer them would give me the daylight hours for various places in NZ, but since I'm not that technical (to lazy to sit with a calculator and work it out) I thought I would ask you fine lot to stick your head out of your windows and say when it's light and when it gets dark. Thanks

[jubjub]

Sunset 5.15 dark at 5.45pm, daylight at around 7.30am, so we are about 2.5 hours extra daylight to what we had in Scotland even on the shortest day.

Makes a difference if you are leaving for work in daylight instead of in the dark!

[richard]

From todays Christchurch Press

Canterbury Plains and Coast - Sun rise 8.02, sun set 5.01

Nelson - Sun rise 7.53, sun set 5.05

Marlborough - Sun rise 7.51, sun set 5.02

Westland - Sun rise 8.05, sun set 5.09

[sarahw]

I go to work in the light (leave at 7.15 am) I leave work in the light (just though this last week!) 5pm - it makes such a difference not to be plunged into darkness in the middle of the afternoon & not having to travel to work in the dark!

[Debbie]

Thanks for the info, I quite like cold crisp days, I still find snow exciting and I don't even mine the rain but it does get me down when when you have to leave your house in the dark, return home in the dark and have to wait till the weekend to see your home in the day light. The UK way of life is dogged by marathon commutes to work and long dark winters.
Here's to the possibility of change

[jonSE]

Debbie

apparently I live in the land of the midnite sun! - I leave home in the dark about 0700hrs and leave work in the dark about 1930 hrs.

Although NZ may be viewed as being this warm place that Brits go to on Holiday (normally in the UK winter) it has a similar climate to the UK albeit with more rain and it is 10 degrees closer to the equator. This has the unfortunate result that daylight hours are much closer to tropical than those of the UK

Jon

[Diny]

Sunset 5.15 dark at 5.45pm, daylight at around 7.30am, so we are about 2.5 hours extra daylight to what we had in Scotland even on the shortest day.

This has confused me. But I've read it over a couple of times and I think I get what you mean.

Are you saying that you get 2.5 hours more daylight during the shortest day in NZ compared to the shortest day in Scotland. In other words winter in NZ and winter in UK.

I remember when we lived in Aberdeen the winter days were dire, I went to work in the dark, came back in the dark and the hours in between never seemed to get fully light. Our skin turned pale blue.

However, the summer months up in Aberdeen were amazing, it stayed light until VERY late, never actually got fully dark and then got light again in the 'wee small hours'.

Diny

[sarahw]

Hello JonSE

Bit confused - at the expense of potentially sounding like a bimbo (forward apology for that ) - are you saying that Wahike experiences less daylight hours than the UK does? If so that would definitely influence a decision to move up North.

I know that different places experience different sunsets but so far we've experienced pretty long days in summer & our winter days are at least 2 hours longer down here in the winter than any London winters day. Sorry if I've got the wrong end of the twig (did you mean 19.30 all year round its dark or just winter?). Be interested to know if 'up North' the days are that much shorter than further down the country.

[GeorgeM]

The nearer you get to the equator the less difference there is between the length of days in the winter and in the summer.

The further you are from the equator the shorter the days are in the winter, but the longer they are in the summer. Once inside the arctic or antarctic circles this means that for at least some time during the winter it doesn't get light, and for some time during the summer it doesn't get dark.

NZ is nearer to the equator than the UK, so its summer days are shorter than you would get anywhere in the UK (I don't think it ever stays light in Chch after 9:30) but its winter days are longer (the earliest it gets dark is about 5pm).

Does that all make sense?

At the equinoxes - March and September - the length of day and night is the same at all places in the world.

Go to http://www.worldtimezone.com/datetime.html for an interesting world map which shows where it is light and where it is dark at any moment in time. The shape of the darkness changes throughout the year. Towards the equinox the boundaries between light and dark become very steep, whilst at the solstices it is much flatter with the polar regions totally in darkness (as at present).

[veronica]

if you go onto www.metservice.co.nz as well as giving the weather it will give the sunrise and sunset hours. this gives you the option on clicking on the different localities to compare them. As a general rule of thumb on an overcast day about the last bit of June it was getting light about 7.45 am and dark about 5.15 in christchurch, from memory in the summer it was about 5am light and about 9.30pm dark.