Angles

Again, I find myself blessed with free internet, and this time in a pub. The last few lines of the previous post have, after a minimal amount of digging, inspired me to devote an entire post to the topic of solar noon altitudes. Is it really that fascinating? I think so. I've never been in a place where the angle of such altitude was so minimal, and the lack of full-on daylight is a little strange. So if the altitude at solar noon today was 21.2°, it leads me to wonder what the lowest maximum daily altitudes have been that I've experienced before. For this, we look to the sun's altitude on the winter solstice, which falls this year on December 22nd. It's 24.2° in Detroit, 24.7° in Chicago, and a generous 25.9° in New York City. TimeAndDate.com doesn't list my hometown of Traverse City, MI, but does have data for Minneapolis, MN, with a comparable latitude; solstice altitude is 21.6°. Even given the astronomical figures for today in Manchester, I've now experienced the LOWEST SOLAR NOON ALTITUDE EVER. Dramatic music please.

And the best thing is that it doesn't get any better. So, to make it even more fun, I thought I'd take a look at the max altitudes for some of the next cities on the tour. Following is a quick list of cities and dates and angles...

• Nov. 6th, London, UK, 22.6°
• Nov. 11th, Cardiff, UK, 21.2°
• Nov. 13th, Horsens, Denmark, 16.3°
• Nov. 15th, Bergen, Norway, 11.2°
• Nov. 17th, Stockholm, Sweden, 11.7°
• Nov. 20th, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 18.5°
• Nov. 22nd, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 15.3°

11.2° in Bergen!? That's going to be a hell of a trip. Can't wait! Plus, there will be fjords. Real, live fjords. If someone would have told me 10 years ago that I would be seeing fjords at the beginning of my 28th year on this planet, I would've laughed it off as absolute hogwash. But there it is. Fjords. Maybe that big rock in the middle of Australia will be next.