During the bright and breezy summer months longer walks can be planned with relative ease with regard to the amount of daylight hours. During the winter months, daylight planning becomes much more important. There’s often not enough daylight hours in the day to fit in longer walks from late November through to late February. Especially when there is an hour or more of travel to the start of the walk. There may be weather related issues too. Snow and ice can hamper the journey to the moors or mountains to enjoy a decent winter’s hike.
After the winter solstice I often think that the evenings are getting lighter but not much is happening in the mornings. It’s like the morning are marking time. Only towards late January do I see a marked difference. That’s my perception, but what is actually going on? Let’s not forget that January gets its fair share of horrible weather with lots of cloud cover and rain. Could this be masking the early daylight?
I found a fantastic resource for assessing daylight hours: Time and Date. This site is loaded with lots of useful resources. Some are good for planning walks, but there is lots there for the inquisitive mind. Look down the page to the Sun, Moon and Space section and follow the Sun and Moon link. At the top of this page, enter a major town/city or area near to your planned walk. I chose Plymouth (UK).
The page loads and you are presented with a graph showing daylight hours through the year. It’s interactive – you can slide your mouse / pointer over the graph and the white line you see here in February will be locked in if you click it. The disjointed chunk in the middle section of the graph is due to UK clocks being put forward and back for daylight saving hours.
The graph is generated from a data source which is also displayed further down the page. It’s a very rich data source that not only provides sunrise and sunset times, but also where it will rise and set, twilight hours (and variants of this), as well as the hours of darkness.
Just under the main graph there is another – a band that displays by default the current date. If you slide your mouse/pointer along the graph above, the band will update accordingly. I didn’t purposely choose the day of love!
The main graph looks to be quite uniform for January, so let’s see if the data reveals anything.
Look to the Day Length column and see that the day increases by at least a minute every day. Nothing out of kelter here then.
Now look to the Sunrise timings between the 1st and 16th January. Note that the difference is 7 minutes between 08:16 and 08:09. Look to the Sunset timings for the same date range and you can see that there is a bigger difference – 20 minutes between 16:23 and 16:43. So the evening sunset timings are indeed greater.
Although there is a difference of just 7 minutes in the mornings and 20 minutes in the evenings, is this enough to notice?
The direct answer to that question might be ‘no’. However, factor in things like work start and stop times, the school run and other daily scheduled activities, this difference can be more noticeable. People perceive that when leaving the workplace for home, it is a bit lighter, especially on a bright day. Yet the mornings remain dark and dingey.
After the 16th January, the morning timings get earlier by at least a minute each day and so become more uniform to what is happing in the evenings.
Regardless of the morning and evening light disparity, it is important to plan walks relative to the lighting conditions. Give due consideration to travel time, off-piste deviations and rest breaks during the walk that all add to the base duration of a planned route. Also, make sure to have a backup plan. Carry a torch and get yourself seen if you are walking on the roads or lanes. Make sure your mobile phone has some battery life.
There are more tips on walking safety in my guide: A Beginner’s Guide to Hiking and Long Walks.
