If you don’t live in a Nordic region you should know that for about four moths every year there’s little or no sunlight. Midway through this stretch is the absolute darkest day, December 21st. the winter solstice.
Now, as we have overcome New Years Eve the light is ever so slowly, yet noticeably, returning. At the moment we are gaining about two extra minutes of daylight every 24 hours. By the end of February we’ll be getting five more minutes of sunlight daily.
Some people experience winter depression during the dark season. It is not uncommon to own an artificial sunlight lamp in the northern parts of Scandinavia.
All this is the reason why long Nordic summer nights with late sunsets, if at all, are highly appreciated.
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splashjlr
4 comments
I’m still waiting for the sun rays to hit the spot where I live
Sunset was looking gorgeous on the B1 in Oslo right now! Gold and purple hues.
4 months? I don’t think even Svalbard has 4 months of polar nights. In Tromsø it’s 2 months.
Like the spirit of the post, so the following is meant just as an interesting fun fact, not quarrelling.
Dec 21st is _not_ technically the darkest day. Days have been shortening and darkening still for about a week after winter solstice and the sun has begun to raise a little earlier and the day to get a little longer just from 3 days ago (around Dec 30th).
The fun lies in the (main) reason: our 24hr day is only but an approximation of the actual solar day (i.e. the time between a spot of land gets from seeing the sun not to see it), getting it wrong of a full minute around the year if I don’t recall badly. The error is enough that sunsets are at their earliest well before the calendar solstice and the sunrise keeps getting later well after it. Technically our clocks are right only 4 times a year. 🙂
Can’t wait for the summer. Hope it’s gonna be as magnificent as it was in 2025.
And happy new year!