As of Thursday, Fairbanks has lost 11 hours, 41 minutes and 54 seconds of daylight since the Summer Solstice.
We will lose another 6 hours, 22 minutes and 13 seconds between now and the Winter Solstice.
Life in the North.
Tag Archives: daylight
Northern Sunlight
Utqiagvik, the community formerly known as Barrow, now has more daylight and civil twilight than Miami, Florida on the Summer Solstice.
We are also closer, in the northern hemisphere, to the upcoming Summer Solstice, than we are to the previous Winter Solstice. That calls for a toast. Cheers.
Hoarding Daylight
It’s still winter in Alaska: it was -10F on Sunday morning, and expected to drop to -20F Monday night, but the switch has been flipped. The sled dogs are running, the ice carvings are on display, and the aurora shows itself almost nightly.
March in Alaska.
Already, we have over 13 hours of visible light during the day, and our days are gaining length by almost 7 minutes with each spin of the Earth.
March is a beautiful time in Alaska’s Interior.
Long Days & Sunny Nights
On Monday, the sun rose at 2:53 am over Utqiagvik, the community formally known as Barrow. The sun will set in 83 days.
Another fun fact: Utqiagvik holds the record for the coldest day with 24 hours of daylight: Temps dropped to -12F on 15 May 1965. Not to be outdone, Deadhorse tied the record in May of 2013.
Fairbanks retakes the lead
I do realize that some people find the long summer days of Interior Alaska difficult to deal with. I am not one of those people; I absolutely revel in them. Arguably, the land of the midnight sun has the best summers and we have no shortage of activities to fill the many sunlit hours.
Officially, spring has arrived, but winter is not giving up just yet. Atqasuk on Alaska’s North Slope saw -53F on Sunday morning. The Interior was considerably warmer with Denali Park at -27F, Fort Yukon -13F and Fairbanks a balmy -8F.
As the graphic above illustrates, Alaska and Canada have had a string of amazing northern lights viewing. Even with the waxing moon, the aurora has been dominating the northern skies of late, putting on some impressive shows.
All good things must come to an end
Fairbanks has ended its 73 day run of 24 hours of Daylight & Civil Twilight. The Dark Side is gaining power.
The Big Q
Now that we are past Christmas, and looking towards the new year, Interior Alaskans find themselves asking the Big Question:
How many minutes of daylight did we gain today?
A: Today was 1 minute and 28 seconds longer than yesterday.
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