Well, it is now March, so get ready for the March Madness when people sometimes go a little crazy with cabin fever. It seems to happen because the days are getting longer, and it may look nice out but the land is still covered in ice and snow. So, people get a little antsy waiting for summer to come.
Others decide to make the most of it.
You may have noticed that the days are getting noticeably longer. On March 3, sunrise is at 7:34 a.m. and sunset is at 6:05 p.m., giving us 10.30.44 units of daylight. That’s 10 hours, 30 minutes and 44 seconds. Each day the daylight increases by 6.05 minutes meaning the sunrise is three minutes earlier and the sunset is three minutes later. It may not seem like all that much but in a seven-day week, that is 42 minutes more daylight.
So next week on March 10, sunrise will be at 7:11 a.m. and sunset will be at 6:24 p.m. In one week, we will have gone to 11 hours, 13 minutes and 11 seconds of daylight. That is a noticeable change and ‘Hey, it’s still light out’ is a rather common exclamation in the North. We really do get to see the seasons change.
Not only are we getting more daylight every day, but the sun is getting higher in the sky. Today, it will be at 21 degrees above the horizon at midday and the higher the sun gets in the sky, the warmer it gets. ‘Here comes the sun’ should be a Northern anthem. It also signals that the big melt is coming.
If you are interested in this whole phenomena there are some good web sites and weather apps that track sunrises, sunsets and the sun’s angle in the sky. It is rather fascinating how it all works and has to do with the earth’s axis, its rotation and its orbit around the sun. People have been studying all this for years. It is amazing that this dance of the spheres, sun, moon and planet earth has been going on for billions of years.
Humans figured it out a long time ago and they superimposed our way of keeping time onto it and the world of humans pretty much runs by the clock they have invented. People get up go to work and eat their meals according to time.
Now just to confuse things, next weekend is when we switch to daylight savings time, which is a bit of a misnomer because it really doesn’t save any daylight. However, it does add to a lot of stress and confusion for a whole lot of people and throws their schedules off. Apparently, a number of accidents occur as people try to adjust.
I remember in school when the teacher was trying to explain it all to us, she asked how many kids liked the changing of the clocks and the extra hour of daylight we were theoretically given. Most of the kids still couldn’t understand why adults still found this a good thing to do. I asked the question “Why not leave the clocks alone and just tell people that the school day was switching from 9 to 3 to 8 to 2?” Apparently I didn’t fully understand how adults think. Still don’t. But hey, they are in charge. Some even talk about double daylight savings time.
So next weekend, remember to spring forward and fall back because apparently that is the way we are still doing things and I still don’t understand why. Being self employed, I just basically try to ignore the whole time change thing. I believe in making the most of the extra daylight we get each day and a nice walk in the sunshine certainly feels good.
I noticed the ravens are busy courting and even saw one gathering sticks to build a nest. Now that is a sure sign that spring is coming and with the increased daylight some of the snow is even starting to evaporate. That a good sign because we have a whole lot of snow to melt this year.
So remember to get out and enjoy the sunshine and visit the snow castle.