Given today was the first day of Summer, not me.
Sunrise at 0744, sunset at 1616. Looks like the 49th Parallel has long days compared to some of you!
The Sun? That’s another matter entirely. It rains a bit here.
Sunrise today 08:20 sunset 15:44 That’s for Edinburgh, and I’m a bit further north.
The shortest day 21st December is 08:42 - 15:40 although the sunrise is a bit later for a couple of weeks after that, and the sunset will have been a bit earlier for a couple of weeks prior.
Lerwick on Shetland’s shortest day runs 09:08 - 14:57
I dont get this thing about Vitamin D.
Sure, Seattle is the saddest, gloomiest, cloudiest, grey-est, drizzly-est, most miserable-est place I have ever lived. But even in nicer climates, there are millions of people who never get ANY exposure to the sun.And in those areas, nobody makes a big issue about Vitamin D.
If you live in a typical American suburban house, with a car in the garage and an office job , you probably get less than 30 seconds of exposure to sunlight per day(assuming you walk across the parking lot at work. It’s zero seconds of exposure if you park under a roof.)
And then maybe you get another 30 seconds of sunshine when you go shopping at Walmart. But during those 30 seconds, you are wearing clothes that cover your entire body , including gloves in wintertime.
But it’s only Seattle residents who have to take extra Vitamin D.
I think its psychological, not physical.
Actually, as much as 75% of the world population is Vitamin D deficient, at least according to the optimum blood levels; of course, if so many people (including those who spend hours outside in the tropics) are said to be deficient, you have to wonder if the recommended Vitamin D levels are too high, although it claims that the incidence of numerous diseases could be reduced by 50% or more.
For all I know, even I might be deficient according to the guidelines, despite having some sun exposure most days (note that the winter sun, even in lower mid-latitudes (about 38.5N here), isn’t strong enough for Vitamin D production) and getting plenty of Vitamin D from my diet (around 200-250% of the RDA, including a multivitamin, they recommend levels even higher though, about 5 times the current RDA, which is just based on the level that prevents rickets). Not that I worry about it, other people in my family get less but don’t have the diseases listed in the first link (and tuberculosis? I thought that was a bacterial infection).
In Southeast England it’s 07:46 and 15:58 today. I get to work before the sun rises and leave after it sets. At least I can get out for a walk in what sun is available over lunch.
8:20 AM sunrise, 4:32 PM sunset in Calgary today - we don’t win. We do have a lot of sun here, though, when it’s up - Calgary is one of the sunniest places in Canada, apparently. I’m still on a vitamin D supplement as recommended by my doctor, though (the blood test confirmed it - I was deficient, like everyone else here).
Sunrise 8:39, sunset 16:57. Not feeling too bad yet though! Other than going to the gym after work, anyway…ugh. Nice big windows at the gym looking out into the dark!
Up here in my neck of northern Canada, the sun rose at 9:16 today, and will set at 16:31. On the 21st, we’ll get less than six hours of light, from about 10-4. So it’s dark when I get to work, and it’s dark when I leave again. I tend to work through my lunches, so If I didn’t smoke, I wouldn’t see the sun for a couple of months at a time.
Time to make our northern hemisphere friends jealous:
Sunrise: 05:45
Sunset: 20:06
14h 24m of sunshine.
Since when? I live in Queensland, Australia. The north of my state is considered tropical. Where I live, in the south east, it’s considered ‘humid semi-tropical’.
We always are being told to take vitamin D…
For me, Sunrise is at 4:45 and Sunset is at 18:33.
Are you aware that St Petersburg is way further South than Tromsø? :dubious:
Anyroad, I just looked it up for my location (which, is a couple of kilometers South of St Petersburg) and it’s sunrise at 08:23 and sunset at 14:52 today, which gives me a total of 6h 28m 53s.
I remember a similar discussion, when someone wanted to know what it’s like in Churchill, Manitoba. One response was “The light, the dreadful light! It doesn’t get dark in summer.” My comment was “Having lived North of Churchill for the largest part of my life I can assure you that looking forward to those long, light summer evenings is what makes it possible for us to survive the long dark winter nights”.
He’s not way off, you know. at winter solstice, St. Petersburg has sunrise at 11-ish and sunset at 5-ish. A little less than six hours’ total day time Add half an hour to an hour of dawn/dusk, and you’ll get dawn between 10 and 11.
Not only N/S , but also E/W (relative to the time zone) influences sunrise/sunset times. It’s similar to the difference between my place and Telperion’s place. Same time zone, but I’m further west than Telperion. So, I get both sunrise and sunset later than him/her. The difference N/S is very small and the length of the day is very similar.
December 21st (this is just the rising and setting of the sun, the actual hours of light is omitted):
St Petersburg:
Sunrise 11.00
Sunset 16.53
Length of day 5h 53m
250 miles South of the arctic circle, where Telperion is situated, will be approximately level with Umeå:
Sunrise 09.28
Sunset 13.46
Length of day 4h 18m
Hammerfest (I couldn’t find any figures for Tromsø, but the difference is negligible):
Sunrise 20th January 2013 11.09
Sunset 21st November 11.38
Length of day 0
I think there’s one helluva difference between St Petersburg and Tromsø and not so much between Umeå and Tromsø. 
I wanted to go to Hammerfest. However the whole day lasts 29 minutes?
If you had a nookie at the wrong time you would miss a day.
I’ve never heard anyone being recommended to take Vitamin D here in England, and even here in the south we’re considerably further north than Seattle.
I read somewhere that of permanently inhabited places, the Faroe Islands have the fewest hours of actual sunshine anywhere in the world. Maybe I ought to rethink that 2015 eclipse trip…
Old joke from that part of the country:
“Of course we had summer this year! Unfortunately, I was busy in the bathroom just then”
Colophon, I take Vitamin D and I live in Perth West Australia and previously Brisbane in Qld. This is on doctors instructions.
It’s not because there is not enough sunlight- it is the reverse. The sun is so fierce that you tend to avoid it in summer- especially if you have Celtic background skin- due to the risk of melanomas. Both myself and my partner do this. I would add that in the winter months here lack of Vitamin D is not an issue as we are out in the sun more often.
I should have said “if you had a quick nookie” to enhance my standing (not to be read literally).
Near Geneva here.
We have a reasonably decent length day (can’t be bothered to look up the exact times), but our problem in the damn low clouds. Starting in mid-November a layer of cloud settles at about the 1000 meter mark in the Lake Geneva basin and stays there for weeks on end. It is basically a high fog. To people living in the towns below this (Geneva, Lausanne, etc) it looks like a very cloudy day. But to people living in the hills above 1000 meters, it will be perfectly sunny. Very frustrating because satellite maps and many weather forecasts will show you complete sun and open skies, and all we get to see is … cloud… We have gone the entire month of December sometimes without a peep of sunlight…