08/13/2011: "Charlie’s Rate Of Change Rpt"

By Charlie Bodenstab

If it appears that the days are getting shorter and quite rapidly, you are correct and it's not your imagination. Strictly for fun and with no profound implications. I thought readers might be interested in the following as it relates to our changing length of the days (here at 48th degree and 30 sec, latitude on San Juan Island).

Length of day - Rate of change per day

Longest day
June 21st 16 hours - 8 minutes ~ Imperceptible

Today
August 9th 14 hours - 40 minutes ~ 3.2 minutes per day

Fastest Rate of change
September 22nd and March 21st ~ 3.8 Minutes per day

Shortest day
December 22nd 8 hours -18 minutes ~ Imperceptible

As you can see we have lost about and hour and a half of daylight since it’s peak on June 21st and will lose almost a full eight hours before we start back up from the black abyss in December. Hang in there however, since in contrast to the stock market the length of daylight is guaranteed to get better with time.

Incidentaslly, if you thought we had a cold spring you are also totally correct. It has been the coldest first seven months of the year by a wide margin since I started to keep records in 2000.

Soak up the sun while it lasts,