A little bit about Alaska wintertime daylight...

 Good morning...

I thought it would be a good time to talk a little bit about the long days of winter, here in Fairbanks, Alaska.

The amount of daylight or darkness at any time of the year does change for all of the residents of the United States.  The lower 48 find themselves driving to work in the darkness and driving home in darkness in the wintertime.  The farther north one goes, the shorter the daylight hours in your day.

I am now living in the interior of Alaska.  Fairbanks is the second-largest city in Alaska and we are pretty much in the middle of this huge state.  We are the largest city that is as far north as we are.  There are smaller burgs and villages that go past the arctic circle are in areas that are plunged into total darkness for the winter months.

Bearing in mind that winter does not officially start until December 21st.  Around September 22nd, our daylight hours and nighttime hours are pretty evenly split.  Once there, our nighttime quickly takes over.  We begin to lose 8+ minutes of daylight each and every day.  I was stunned at how fast we lose daylight.

Today, according to my Google assistant, Sunrise in Fairbanks is at 9:19 AM.  The sun will set at 3:51 PM.  There is a period of dusky light around each of those times.

Another oddity is the fact that the sun rises and sets in the South sky.  In the summer, it does rise high enough in the sky to seem more normal... like the lower 48.  But once we get past June 20th, the sun begins its decline from overhead to rising and setting closer to the horizon.  The bad part of that is there are days in the spring and fall when the sun only rises high enough to be directly in your eyes when you drive.  It is a time when I have sun visors on a swivel to block the blinding rays with each turn.  I also, if I remember, put on a baseball cap so I can also tilt my head to be able to see while driving.  It is quite frustrating.

Here is a link to time and sunrise/sunset information for Fairbanks.  Any time you are curious about what I am experiencing, just click onto this website and you can see the hours of daylight, etc.

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/fairbanks

When I first thought about moving here I was not sure about the long winter darkness.  I had visited during both summer and winter times, so I had an idea of what it would be like.  I was much more concerned about the dark days and not so much about the light days.

I have been here now for a full cycle of long days and short days.  I am surprised at what I like and dislike.  The dark days are not totally dark.  On the longest day of darkness, there are still about 3 hours in the middle of the day where there is a dusky light.  And even at night, the skies still have a glow about them so it really is not as bad as I expected.  At my advancing age, nighttime driving is not at its best, so I was really concerned about driving around in the darkness.  I was used to the really black nights out in the countryside of Southeast Pennsylvania. What I had not factored in is that here in Fairbanks there are streetlights along the major roads.  My subdivision is not that far off a major route, so I can easily drive just about anywhere in town when the sunshine or daylight is gone.

My surprise was how I did not get any really good sleep during the summer.  I have 100% blackout curtains in my bedroom.  It creates a nighttime darkness 24/7.  But, I still seemed to know that it was daylight outside and my mind would wake up every 2 or 3 hours.  That sucked!  But then as I age, that seems to happen just because I am getting older.  I have found that I can sleep longer stints during the darker, longer nights.  Plus, sleeping in late is also much easier to do.  So... for the time being, I prefer to hibernate in the darkness than to frolic in the light. 

I will talk about the light days as they happen in 2021.  I will also talk about the snowy weather and the cold as they occur this winter.

Hope you have a wonderful day, wherever you are!!