Barrow, Alaska; the northernmost human settlement in the United States. Yesterday the sun finally peaked over the horizon for the first time since November 18th.
Thinking about that makes my winter solstice sunrise at 10:16am with sunset at 3:35pm feel a lot better.
I was just explaining this to my kids today. What I wondered is do you get used to sleeping at the summer solstice? Or do you just stay up late all the time?
Equinox vs. Equilux.
Sun blocking window drapes. Which as you can imagine are readily available here 
Also paying attention to what time it is. Sometimes you would be driving around, kids are playing in the street, you are thinking about going home to do a chore when you suddenly realize that it is 11pm and you need to go to work the next day.
Here’s a picture of the sunrise:
And at noon:
Plus the beautiful sunset:
Not to mention that after you wasted the entire day to watch the sun you still had close to 23 hours to do other stuff…
one thing i noticed when i went up there 6 yrs ago in april, the light there is not as bright as here. its like its washed out some. must be the angle of the sun is different. the grey light is more pronounced as well.
It feels like spring here by mid January. Days are noticeably longer. Light at 8 am and now light until 6:30 pm. That’s an extra half hour in the evening. Plus it was 70 today.
When I lived in Amarillo and worked outside in winter there came a point in late afternoon that the light changed. I could notice it without looking at the clock. It was about 4 pm. I’m sure the old timers noticed many such things before clocks and watches.
I’m in latitude 61.5 (artic circle is 66.3). Right now it is downright balmy at 32f, chances are before the winter is over we’ll see -20f. The norm is for the ground to be frozen until mid May.
February is when the day begins to feel longer, a whooping 7 hours and 40 minutes of daylight. It may not sound like much but sunrise and sunset begin to feel more normal and we start gaining 5+ minutes a day from there on.
finally getting some -20 towards the end of the week. Feb is just the mid point in winter and sometimes depressing. i dont get excited for spring until mid apr. when the snow finally starts to melt. we have frosts until mid june. bah humbug!
I’m amazed at the many plants that don’t care if it freezes overnight. Haskaps with enough Russian in them are like that, I have seen their blooms covered in snow more than once with no ill effects.
yep
This will depress you even more. If you remove the three coldest months from Denver weather they’d still have more cold than down here. And if you removed the three coldest months from your weather you’d still have more cold than Denver.
January is mid winter in all of north America. It just seems like February should be mid winter.
I don’t know why anyone lives up there. Even half the natives don’t like it.
i actually like winter. as i get older though my body tells me its about time to head south in the worst of it. once my inlaws pass that is our plan. i say the same about the south. how you guys can stand the heat. i get visibly sick over 75 and that’s not exerting myself. at least if you’re cold you can add a layer. i dont know how folks made it down there before air conditioning. it had to be brutal. the dry heat of the S.W is so much more tolerable…
Because it is one hell of a magical place. I moved here in 2016 after a decade or so of keeping an eye out for the right job.
The summers are just mind defying stunning; days that refuse to end, with sun loving plants exploding with life.
And freedom, this is definitely one of the last bastions of freedom left in the US. Some may like the HOA life, I like how out of town I can build an entire house without having to draw a permit. Say I want to get electricity dropped in my lot and live in my trailer while I build my own house; I can do that without some city bureaucrat acting like it will prompt the end of the world.
Plus I love weird people and we have them in spades. We are so weird that our winning republican candidate for senate endorsed and got endorsed in turn by our wining democrat candidate for congress. So weird that republicans won a majority of seats in the local legislature, but in the coalition that has the majority there are more democrats than republicans. So weird than when the national republican party got involved in our elections because candidates were not ‘republican enough’, we responded by getting rid of party primaries and implementing rank choice voting.
And have i mentioned lately that I don’t have to spray anything at all in order to grow apples, cherries, and a bunch of other stuff? Our biggest pest is mosquitoes and they are not interested in fruits.
I used to really enjoy winter. Now, I’m ready to be done with it by mid January. I’m trying to convince myself I could spend either January-March or February to April somewhere in SW FL. I’m just not sure what the heck I’m going to do for that much time without having a garage to work on something or acreage with projects to complete.
Alaska certainly is a beautiful place. I’ve been there twice and each time I feel a strong urge to move there. I don’t think I could take the winters however.
I live in the best climate east of the Rockies. It’s no hotter here in summer than Denver. But we skip the worst three months of their winter. Humidity is seldom oppressive. Sun shines 75% of the time all year long. Texans are sort of like Alaskans only warmer.
Anywhere east of here is either hot and humid in summer or cold and cloudy in winter and many of those places are both…!!!
There are a few small areas of CA and AZ with better weather but most of them are well…CA and all the negatives they deal with…
Alaska I’d like in summer except for the bugs and wet conditions. Winter, ah you’re just kidding yourself. Admit it, winter in Alaska isn’t so bad because you don’t have to deal with bugs and rain/mud/bogs.
Don’t you have poisonous snakes and spiders as well as scorpions to deal with?
I’ve seen one diamond back in 20 yrs here. Plenty of black widows but they’ve never bothered me. One scorpion in my house but it was about an inch and a half long.
My biggest danger is dogs when I go walking and I can see them coming.
