Thursday, April 20, 2006
Seasonal Hours of Daylight in Tenerife
Apart from the relatively warmer weather, one of the major reasons for visiting this latitude (28°N) in the winter months is that there are far more daylight hours.
Whilst in the UK, it begins to get dusk at around 3:30 pm in mid-winter, the earliest here is around 6:30 pm.
On the other hand, in summer, we don't have such long days with it remaining light until well into the late evening. There is a variation between seasons (probably no more than two hours of difference between mid-summer and mid-winter), but it is not as marked a variation as it is at more northern latitudes, such as the UK or those places near the north pole that have total darkness in winter or where the sun never sets in summer.
Probably because there is little variation, after so many years here, I have developed the ability to tell the time, simply from the quality of the light at any given time of the day.
This is maybe not something you think about, normally, until you get here and notice that it has not got dark yet at the time you are used to it doing so, but it is certainly a good reason to visit the islands and avoid mitigate the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).
