As we approach the midwinter of our year, it is interesting to look at the difference in daylight and day length during our year. When we arrived in late November, we were greeted with nearly 21 hours of sunlight and basked in the long sunny days and warm summer nights.
In early December, with 24 hours of sunlight, people worked in bright sunshine with average temperatures between −3.7°C overnight and 1.4°C during the day. They would finish work and be back in their living quarters with still unlimited hours of sunlight left to explore. Time seemed only limited by the energy one had. It was an unusual feeling looking outside at midnight and seeing full daylight — no wonder some stayed up socialising at night not realising how late it really was.
But as we approach our midwinter with the temperatures falling to an average minimum of −18.5°C and an average maximum of −11.1°C, the hours of daylight also becoming less. We now go to, and return from our workplaces in darkness with a day length of only five hours and five minutes, and as the day length continues to shorten by seven minutes per day we will lose another 2.36 hours by midwinter, resulting in our shortest day of the year with only 2.29 hours of daylight.