Good Question: Do We Get More Daylight Early Or Late?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Whether you're an early riser or night owl, you've finally noticed days are getting longer.
The sun rose Monday at 7:33 a.m. and set at 5:20 p.m. That's almost an hour more light than Dec. 21, the shortest day of the year.
But many WCCO viewers, including Pauline from Sanborn, have wondered: Why does it seem like we're adding more light at night than in the morning? Do we add equal time to sunrise and sunset? Good Question.
"The short answer is no, but it's a little bit complicated," Gerry Ruch, a professor of astrophysics at the University of St. Thomas, said.
By February, we're adding between two-and-a-half and three minutes of sunlight each day. But using the sunrise and sunset times between Dec. 21 and Feb. 1, 45 minutes of light has been added in the afternoon and 15 minutes in the morning.
Those numbers, though, flip and change throughout the winter and spring, eventually coming in equally by mid-June.
"Although the times are generally similar, they are not exactly equal," Kisha Delain, a professor of astronomy at the University of St. Thomas, said.
This occurs generally because of the tilt of the Earth's axis, which can cause a discrepancy between clock time and sun time.
"The earth orbits the sun, but it's not a perfect circle," Sarah Komperud, a planetarium educator at the Bell Museum of Natural History at the University of Minnesota, said. "At different parts of our orbit around the sun we're moving faster, so it's a combination of rotation and orbit that affect our daylight hours."
Add in daylight saving to the mix and the times can get even more distorted as well as our psyches and concept of time.
"In the end, it all evens out," Ruch said.