The Friday Fillip

Today or tomorrow, depending on your time zone, the sun will be at its furthest point from you and winter will officially begin. If that seems anticlimactic to you, given how autumn has been behaving, think of this vital fact: from here on in the days get longer. Yes, light fans, there’s going to be more of the good stuff. So at 10.08 p.m. tonight in Vic and Van, at 11.08 in Ed and Gary, at 12:08 a.m. tomorrow in Peg… and so on and so forth, give a cheer, however faint, as Sol begins his approach.

Now, knowing you as I do, I’ve understood that this simple fact won’t be enough to satisfy you. So I’ve uncovered a website, Gaisma, that lets you see in various ways exactly where this is all going — that is, how quickly the daylight hours will lengthen — because, given our northern latitudes, the increase isn’t regular.

For reasons too obvious to me to mention I’ve summoned the data for Toronto, which tell me that tomorrow the day will be 1 minute longer (okay; not exactly riches; but I’ll take it, I’ll take it), a week from now it’ll be 3 minutes longer, a month a whole 32 minutes longer… et-lovely-cetera. But I like graphs, and Gaisma obliges:

Click to enlarge

No need, I’m sure, to tell you what the grey and the yellow represent.

If you’d like the data for your city or town, you’ll find a long list of Canadian place names linked to the good news. So hurry on over to Gaisma and warm your hands at the ever-so-slightly-swelling yellow coming soon to a sky near you.