British Sumer Time Note

[Terry - Somerset]

The phrase "lions lead by donkeys" resonates:

In the spring of 1916, during World War One, the German army turned the clocks forward as a way of conserving energy. Many followed suit including the UK. The main reason is to make better use of daylight during the longer days of summer.

That turning the clocks forward by an hour delayed the start of the day by a similar amount was obviously an intellectual leap too far. One that clearly still escapes legislators today!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Can't be many building site joiners on these forums, ever tried fitting a roof an hour and a half before sunrise? without daylight saving the winter solstice falling on Dec 21st would mean sunrise is at 09:24.

How does daylight saving/summertime affect December?

 

[Spectric]

without daylight saving the winter solstice falling on Dec 21st would mean sunrise is at 09:24.

If you live in some places like Finland then you get no daylight for a large part of the year .

 

[Geoff_S]

If you live in some places like Finland then you get no daylight for a large part of the year .

Their roofs must be in a terrible state!

 

[JSW]

How does daylight saving/summertime affect December?

27th October the clocks go back an hour, so sunrise on the 27th changes from 07:58 to 06:58, so by Dec 21st (winter solstice, roughly the shortest day of the year) with daylight saving sunrise is at 08:22, add back on the daylight saving hour which many folks wish to abolish and that becomes 09:22

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Dec 21st (winter solstice, roughly the shortest day of the year) with daylight saving sunrise is at 08:22 ...

With daylight saving? Daylight saving applies in the summer - if the clocks didn't change in the summer it wouldn't make any difference to the winter.
Many would choose not to change from UTC/GMT at all. (Many would choose to go an hour ahead all year, but that a different argument.)

 

[Cobbs]

Can't be many building site joiners on these forums, ever tried fitting a roof an hour and a half before sunrise? without daylight saving the winter solstice falling on Dec 21st would mean sunrise is at 09:22

Worked on the roofs (slating) for over 25 years, the amount of available daylight doesn't change with the clocks, just adjust your working hours if you need to and leave the clocks alone. And anyway, winter time is not daylight saving time - in the winter we revert to GMT, which is what the rest of the world set their clocks by - it's BST that's the anomaly...

Edit: Phil beat me to it!

 

[JSW]

Dec 21st (winter solstice, roughly the shortest day of the year) with daylight saving sunrise is at 08:22 ...

With daylight saving? Daylight saving applies in the summer - if the clocks didn't change in the summer it wouldn't make any difference to the winter.
Many would choose not to change from UTC/GMT at all. (Many would choose to go an hour ahead all year, but that a different argument.)

You're nitpicking, I referred to daylight saving regarding spring forward/fall back as daylight saving to save typing out long hand, but you knew that already

Worked on the roofs (slating) for over 25 years, the amount of available daylight doesn't change with the clocks, just adjust your working hours if you need to and leave the clocks alone. And anyway, winter time is not daylight saving time - in the winter we revert to GMT, which is what the rest of the world set their clocks by - it's BST that's the anomaly...

Edit: Phil beat me to it!

Yep, I'll get the site foreman to open the site an hour later next winter, all sorted now, thanks!

 

[Cobbs]

Missed your lie-in this morning?

 

[Grandad455]

Missed your lie-in this morning?

I had an elderly neighbour who used to feed the foxes and badgers in her garden and she could never get her head around how the animals knew to come up at a different time when the clocks changed. I did try to explain to her but gave up

 

[JSW]

Missed your lie-in this morning?

Slept just fine, thanks for asking though.

My point still stands, sunrise at 09:22, would anyone actually prefer that?

 

[Cobbs]

Slept just fine, thanks for asking though.

My point still stands, sunrise at 09:22, would anyone actually prefer that?

And your point is still wrong - as Phil pointed out, in midwinter, the latest the sun rises (London) is about 8.04 GMT, and sets just after 4, with noon in the middle, where it belongs. The clocks wander away from GMT for the summer, which is why noon is at 1 pm in the middle of the year.
You can check it out here: https://greenwichmeantime.com/time-gadgets/sunrise-sunset/

 

[Richard_C]

Had a local walk today, a few miles. From the top of a hill we heard a village church clock chime 3. According to my BST set watch it was 1. So they remembered they had to change the clock, just didn't remember what to change it to .

 

[JSW]

And your point is still wrong - as Phil pointed out, in midwinter, the latest the sun rises (London) is about 8.04 GMT, and sets just after 4, with noon in the middle, where it belongs. The clocks wander away from GMT for the summer, which is why noon is at 1 pm in the middle of the year.
You can check it out here: https://greenwichmeantime.com/time-gadgets/sunrise-sunset/

You're absolutely correct of course, I somehow managed to get BST and GMT completely back to front, apologies all round folks, I'll go and have a wee chat with myself about this

 

[niemeyjt]

Can't be many building site joiners on these forums, ever tried fitting a roof an hour and a half before sunrise? without daylight saving the winter solstice falling on Dec 21st would mean sunrise is at 09:22

But unless I am missing something, there is no Daylight Saving Time in force on December 21st - it ends in October?

 

[ajs]

I had an elderly neighbour who used to feed the foxes and badgers in her garden and she could never get her head around how the animals knew to come up at a different time when the clocks changed. I did try to explain to her but gave up

Apparently that is a thing dairy farmers have to factor in, cows know when they are due for milking and get agitated if it's late. When the clocks change they have to transition the milking times by few minutes over ten days or so.

 

[ajs]

And your point is still wrong - as Phil pointed out, in midwinter, the latest the sun rises (London) is about 8.04 GMT, and sets just after 4, with noon in the middle, where it belongs. The clocks wander away from GMT for the summer, which is why noon is at 1 pm in the middle of the year.
You can check it out here: https://greenwichmeantime.com/time-gadgets/sunrise-sunset/

There are two systematic errors at play there, firstly GMT is the average (hence the "mean") local time as obserbed at Greenwich. Since the majority of the country is to the west of Greenwich it follows that locally observed solar time trails GMT.

The second is that a day is not of constant length. Leave aside the natural variation in the speed of the Earth's rotation due to ocean and atmospheric currents and tidal effect, those are quite small compared that caused by the fact the Earth's orbit is an ellipse rather than a circle. As a result geometery changes (how many times the Earth must rotate for the Sun to return to its highest point) and it also moves faster around the Sun when it is closer to it (in December).

For those reasons sunrise and sunset would never perfectly centre themselves around noon. It's also why if you count the days between the spring and autumn equinoxes you find that "winter" (in the northern hemisphere) is actually several days shorter than "summer".

 

[spiritburner]

Talk to the people in the north of the UK and Europe and see what they think first....It does make a difference up in Scotland quite a lot to parents but to me down here in Spain it means bugger all, life is still very good, the sun shines every single day and I just cant help but love living here in Barcelona for the last 25 years.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

There are two systematic errors at play there, firstly GMT is the average (hence the "mean") local time as obserbed at Greenwich. Since the majority of the country is to the west of Greenwich it follows that locally observed solar time trails GMT ...

I still know when it's beer o'clock.

 

[Fergie 307]

We’ve got three clocks that are quarter hour chimers. Now that is a PITA moving the hand on and letting it chime each quarter!

Mustn’t complain though

Same here, plus an anniversary clock. Have to stop the latter, then try and remember to set it going again when the right time comes around