No Time to Change

Today is Sunday, 4 November.  In the US it means that in most places everyone sets their clocks back to Standard Time.  And almost everyone complains about how they hate changing time—“why not just keep the same time all year round?” they say and think.

Living in Singapore we found out that there is no Daylight Savings Time here.  Why? When you are located less than 100 miles from the equator there is no need.  Days are basically the same length year-round.  It’s easy to remember sunrise and sunset times—about 7am and 7pm all year round.  And while it makes perfect sense, we had never thought about it before.

Here are a few of examples to illustrate the point.  The first is the length of days in Singapore throughout the year.  Very few changes.

The next one you can see clearly see San Francisco’s longer summer days and shorter winter ones.

And the last example is Fairbanks AK (the furthest north we have ever driven).  And while the sun “technically” sets there, the real result never gets past twilight.

Just one of those odd things that we didn’t ever thing about.