As the Winter Solstice approaches?

Question

How many minutes of daylight do we lose daily in the UK. Is it constant every day, because it appears to speed up.
Is it the same gaining daylight in the spring, it seems to take longer.

Answer 1

it works roughly like a sine curve. On June 21st (roughly) you have the longest day, after which you start losing daylight. It starts slowly, and accelerates. The pace of loss is highest on/around the autumnal equinox (which is around September 21st - this year it was on the 23rd). The pace of loss then slows, to reach zero on the shortest day of the year, around Dec. 21st (Dec 22nd this year).

Then obviously we start gaining daylight, slowly at first, the pace accelerates until it reaches a maximum around the vernal equinox (March 21st in 2007), the the pace slows until it reaches zero around the summer solstice around June 21st (will indeed be June 21st in 2007).


Hope this helps

Answer 2

The minutes lost/gained each day is at a max at the equinoxes (21/9, 21/3). Goes down to pretty much 0 at the solstices. So right now the number of minutes change is reducing as we approach December 21

You can imagine it as a sine wave