Daylight Savings Time
April 9, 2006 5:02 am
I'm not a huge fan of this revision to the weekend that we change over to DST. I like the last week of March here in Maine, when the sun comes up at about 5 am. It makes for early days and lots accomplished before lunch. With the early daylight savings change, we won't see a sunrise that early this year--6:04 am is the earliest we'll see the sun and come Sunday, it's going to rise at 7:02. Sigh. It's rather like living in Ohio, what with the lazy sunrise and the party hardy late sunsets.
Lubec, Me (way downeast) doesn't at all agree with me on this. Their earliest sunrise is in mid-June at 4:41 am, and in the winter, the sun sets before 4 pm. They do have more than 15 hours of sunlight during the summer, and they're the first folks in the US to see the sunrise--that seems a nice trade off for the short winter days, doesn't it?
Much of Maine 'suffers' from the early days and short evenings--enough to have the state legislature consider moving to Atlantic time (one hour earlier than EST) every once in a while. I think the measure is currently tabled again and that makes our Boston commuting neighbors quite happy.
UPDATE:
See how DST affects dairy cows and traffic fatalities (video link in the middle of the article)/
3 comments:
Living at higher (or lower, for that matter) latitudes has its pluses and minuses as you mentioned. Here in Poland, the December sun likes to go down around 330 at its worst. The solarium (tanning bed) has grown in popularity in recent years as a result. I love the summers though, days are lo-o-ong.
My favorite was one summer in Tallinn, Estonia, no too far from St. Petersburg and the famous white nights. It was late June and I remember watching the sun set at 11 pm. It never really got fully dark, sun just kind of hung out under the horizon leaving a faint glow, before starting to come up again like 2ish if I remember right. What a blast.
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My parents have spent a summer in Alaska and a lot of time in Scandanavia/St.Petersburg and had a tough time adjusting. My dad has pictures of sunsets at midnight and sunrise at 2:30 or so....
I love the longer days here, but the shorter days in winter can get a little tough.
My favorite thing this time of year is to watch how much daylight we gain every day. It's amazing.
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