We’ve got some good news for you, Seattle — we’re only a few days away from 5 p.m. sunsets.
It’s definitely a big milestone in making steady progress toward getting out of the Big Dark. But if you keep track of daily sunrise and sunset times, it may really feel like it’s taking awhile — and that’s because it is.
While our days change in length by ~3:30 minutes around both equinoxes, our days change by only three seconds on the two solstices.
This is due to something called the “geometric effect” — it essentially points out that the rate of change between our day lengths speeds up and slows down based on what angle the Earth’s axis is tilted is at.
But look on the brightside — that means our days are getting exponentially longer as we speak. ☀️