One thing we have noticed as we travel is that sunset and sunrise times vary widely. This was particularly obvious at Big Bend National park
Two scientific fun facts
- 1) At the equator, time between sunrise and sunset is consistently 12 hours, and the closer one moves to the poles, for the northern hemisphere, the shorter the day becomes in winter (shorter than 12) and the longer it becomes during the summer (longer than 12)
- 2) Within a given timezone and latitude, sunrise and sunset can vary by up to an hour between the western and eastern boundaries of that time zone
In big Bend, this is further amplified by the fact that looking at the US timezone map, areas further north are really in the Mountain time zone, so therefore the sun rises later and sets later. We were amazed every day that we would still see light at the horizon up until 7:30 PM, in January!