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Kevin
nvk
08 March 2009 @ 04:40 pm
High Noon  
We usually think of noon as 12 (PM or AM depending on whether you're nuts or not). There is also a notion of solar noon, familiar to sundial enthusiasts (a surprisingly gregarious group). This is when the sun reaches its highest altitude for the day and starts on its way down. I think, due to the coincidence of recently expanding Daylight Savings time, March 1st being a Sunday, and early March being a time of year when solar noon happens at some of its latest times while also moving earlier each day, that today will be the latest occurrence of solar noon in US HISTORY!

1) This is not-so-vaguely related to some things I wrote about quite awhile ago.

2) I'm wondering if this is where the term "high noon" came from. It makes sense because that's when the sun is the highest, and the term is associated with an era before modern timekeeping technology was widespread.

3) The exact time of solar noon will still vary depending on longitude, but for any given US location that observes Daylight Savings, today (March 8th 2009) will be the latest occurrence ever. Unless I'm somehow mistaken (it happens sometimes).

4) I briefly wondered how this related to sunrise and sunset times, and concluded it doesn't much.
 
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Kevin: SereneDuck[info]nvk on March 8th, 2009 09:40 pm (UTC)
with respect to 4) - all of this stems from this being the earliest in the year we have ever jumped ahead an hour. The other thing I would be looking at maybe happening would be the latest sunrise, and it would be competing for this with whatever the 'natural' latest time is near the winter solstice. The question would be whether the sunrise time difference between approximately Dec. 21st and March 8 is more or less than the artificial hour we throw in; and the answer to this would mostly depend on latitude. I think, and am not at all sure about this part, that the only place the difference might be less than an hour would be Hawaii, and they don't do Daylight Savings.
Kevin[info]nvk on March 8th, 2009 11:59 pm (UTC)
Following up with some lookups of US Naval Observatory data seems to indicate that at least here in southern Florida that the aforementioned difference is less than an hour. Our previous latest sunrises happened a little past 7 in the morning in the middle of January, compared to a little past 7:30 today. It appears this record of latest sunrise ever has been shattered across the southern US, and yet the mainstream media says nothing!
Jenny[info]nurgletwh on March 9th, 2009 01:30 pm (UTC)
Bleck
All of whicH doesn't touch or change the fact that this end of DST sucks big hairy donky balls.

Especially when get-out-of-bed time for work is 5am.
saskehava[info]saskehava on March 10th, 2009 02:10 am (UTC)
Late solar noon
Sas found all this so interesting, and, especially since it involved a "latest" occurrence, he crawled out of the cave in time to witness this "latest solar noon" ever. Got so excited I coughed up a hairball! (or maybe it was a donkey ball???)

Well sonofagun! Following up on navel observation, found another hairball there, too! (hope not donkey ball; that would be gross!)

Keep up good work!