Sunday, November 28, 2010

Teach me about sunrise times

Look at this chart of sunrise and sunset times in Toronto in December 2010.

The solstice is December 21, with 8h 55m 34s of daylight. Sunrise is at 7:48 AM and sunset is at 4:43 PM.

But then sunrise time keeps getting later. It's 7:49 on December 23, 7:50 on December 25, and 7:51 on December 29. In fact, it takes until January 17 for sunrise time to get back to being earlier than it was on the solstice.

And I just noticed the same goes for the sunset. It's 4:43 on the solstice, but it's earlier than that on the days leading up to the solstice, going as early as 4:40 between December 7 and 11.

Why is this?

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