We had a great day today. The temperature was +17 F and winds were calm. The sun on the new snow is intense and when we got home this evening around 7pm, I noticed the sun was bright and still fairly high above the horizon.
I started to wonder if Oxford still had sun. Surely, the south has more sun this time of year. But the fact is the spring equinox is almost here and northern latitude get a whole lot of sun. The sun sat in northern Mississippi today at 7:11 pm, while in North Dakota it went down at 7:43 pm. Yeah, a half hour of sun! And there is still twilight to account for. In Mississippi, twilight ended tonight at 7:36 while NoDak ended at 8:14. So you get an extra 45 minutes before dark.
Ok, some might already be thinking that there has to be a simple explanation. How can northern latitudes get more sun in the winter. Well in the morning, Mississippi sun rise is 7:00 today and NoDak was at 7:29. So both places have about 12 hours and 11 minutes of sun. It is just that NoDak has more in the evening where is counts.
But what about the Solstice in June?
NoDak recieves about 1 hour and 35 minutes more sun in the June than does Mississippi. Also, don't forget about twilight. NoDak has longer twilights natural sunlight can be seen from 4:48 am to 10:12 pm in June. Here is a table for comparison:
Summer Solstice (June 21) |
||||
Twilight Begin |
Sunrise |
Sunset |
Twilight End |
|
| Grand Forks, ND | 4:48am |
5:29am |
9:31pm |
10:12pm |
| Oxford, MS | 5:17am |
5:46am |
8:14pm |
8:43pm |
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