The body produces increased levels of melatonin at night, and when the nights start growing long, the extra hours without daylight can disrupt the body s level of melatonin, and this may also have a mood-altering effect.

For us on the northern part of Earth, the shortest day comes at the solstice. After the winter solstice, the days get longer, and the nights shorter. It’s a seasonal shift that nearly everyone notices. Earth has seasons because our world is tilted on its axis with respect to our orbit around the sun.

When we reach the end of February, daylight will have increased nearly a full minute more. The sun shines directly over the Tropic of Cancer on March 20, the vernal (or spring) equinox, with daylight time a little over 12 hours in duration.

On the summer solstice, we enjoy the most daylight of the calendar year. The Sun reaches its most northern point in the sky (in the Northern Hemisphere) at local noon. After this date, the days start getting “shorter,” i.e., the length of daylight starts to decrease.

On the June solstice, the Northern Hemisphere leans most toward the sun, giving us longer days and more intense sunlight. It’s the opposite in the Southern Hemisphere, where June 21 marks the start of winter and the shortest day of the year.

During the months of September and October we are constantly losing roughly 2 minutes per day as we near the Autumnal Equinox which we receive “equal” amount of daylight and darkness. You might ask yourself, how does Daylight Saving Time play a role into this?

Daylight Saving Time Today Today, most Americans spring forward (turn clocks ahead and lose an hour) on the second Sunday in March (at 2:00 A.M.) and fall back (turn clocks back and gain an hour) on the first Sunday in November (at 2:00 A.M.).

Although the daytime length at the Equator remains 12 hours in all seasons, the duration at all other latitudes varies with the seasons. During the winter, daytime lasts shorter than 12 hours; during the summer, it lasts longer than 12 hours.

The days begin to shrink by seconds each day from Saturday, June 22, until the winter solstice, which this year falls on Saturday, Dec. 21, at 10:19 p.m. CST. On that day there will be only 10 hours, nine minutes and 39 seconds of daylight in Mobile. The farther north you go, the shorter the day length.

The sun is coming up about a minute earlier each day and setting about a minute later each day. After that, the days will slowly start to get shorter again. But it’s a slow process, the sun will still rise before 6 AM through July 26, 2020, and the sun will continue to set after 8 PM through August 11th, 2020.

In the summer, days feel longer because the Sun rises earlier in the morning and sets later at night. When the North Pole of the Earth is tilted toward the Sun, we in the northern hemisphere receive more sunlight and it’s summer. It is also the day that the Sun reaches its highest point in the sky.

around 24 hours