It is now 7:36 in Panama. It is still pitch dark, despite the fact that sunrise is listed at 6:13. I’ve been awake at 6 AM for weeks, and it was getting light. Anyone else seeing this?
It’s p.m.?
Yes. It’s evening. Which leads me to ask, is everything ok?
Yes, this happens to me now and then. I always think of that Twilight Zone episode.
Badly overcast?
I have been on a strange schedule and weird medicine. But it should have been light at 6:13 last night.
Also, the people I asked about “sunrise” didn’t clarify.
A cab driver suggested this (rather than the obvious suggestion that I had confused AM and PM), but I could see the moon and stars.
Most of my clocks don’t show AM or PM. My phone does, so I should have looked at that.
My husband insists that as much as possible, we need clocks that use 24-hour time. Might that be helpful?
Maybe he looking out over the Atlantic for the sunrise.
The sun rises out of the Pacific where I live.
This thread is… disorienting.
What next? A border crossing where you travel south into Canada from the US?
Hence the joke based on looking over the Atlantic in Panama would result in not seeing the sunrise. Yet most places in North/South America the Sun does rise over the Atlantic, so someone may think that applies everywhere in North/South America - even Panama. So like the person goes to Panama and looks out over the Atlantic. But they don’t see the sunrise. And they say, “Hey, I’m looking over the Atlantic but I don’t see the sunrise.” Because it’s rising over the Pacific. And the Pacific is not the same ocean as the Atlantic.
That’s why it’s a joke.
I’m not sure how well the joke holds up. Either Panama has no Atlantic coast (being the Caribbean and all), in which case you couldn’t possibly look out over the Atlantic from Panama, or you very much can see East into the Atlantic from some parts of Panama (assuming we treat the Caribbean as part of the Atlantic).
If you were to divide Panama into quarters from west to east and the middle going through Panama City, the second quarter (i.e. that directly west of Panama City) looks east over the Pacific while the Atlantic/Carribean is north.
I don’t know what the “joke” is supposed to be. Panama runs generally east-west in an irregular shape. There is a large swath of the coastline that looks east over the Gulf of Panama in the Pacific Ocean. There are other parts where you would look east over the Caribbean Sea.
As to the OP, I have a few times myself, when keeping very odd hours, woken up and momentarily confused AM and PM. I hate digital devices that could so easily indicate AM or PM but don’t, because it’s supposed to be “obvious”.
Almost everywhere near the Atlantic coast in North & South America, you would see the Sun rise over the Atlantic. Many people think that everywhere near the Atlantic coast in North & South America, you would see the Sun rise over the Atlantic. There are areas in Panama that the Sun rises over the Pacific so if you are looking over the Atlantic and not the Pacific in those areas, you would not see the Sun rise.
So the joke is that he lives in one of those areas and was looking over the Atlantic (thinking the Sun always rises over the Atlantic) and couldn’t see the Sun rising not knowing he was in an area where the Sun rises over the Pacific.
But if the sun rises over the Pacific in his part of Panama, he won’t be able to see the Atlantic, and if he’s looking towards the Atlantic then he will still see the sunrise. Over analysed joke fail.
See, now there I don’t know. Panama is sufficiently narrow in places that one might conceivably, from a sufficient height (perhaps achievable by natural terrain, or perhaps even a tall building) see both the Atlantic and the Pacific from the same point simply by turning about.
Maybe. But in that case you won’t see the sun rise over the Pacific.
In Santa Barbara I’ve watched the moon rise over the Pacific a number of times.
Not the sun, though. I’m too lazy for that.