[Carey]

One of the things I wondered about before we came here, was how early it got dark in the winter.

Well, now I know; it's not nearly as early as in the UK; last evening I was out at 5.30pm and it was easily light enough to look at my watch. We'd had the lights on in the house from about 5pm. By 6pm it was getting pretty dark, street lights on etc. But significantly better than the UK with those 4pm dark afternoons.

Just another positive to add to our ever growing list, of things we love about living here!

[YouMeAndThree]

One of the things I wondered about before we came here, was how early it got dark in the winter.

Well, now I know; it's not nearly as early as in the UK; last evening I was out at 5.30pm and it was easily light enough to look at my watch. We'd had the lights on in the house from about 5pm. By 6pm it was getting pretty dark, street lights on etc. But significantly better than the UK with those 4pm dark afternoons.

Just another positive to add to our ever growing list, of things we love about living here!

Oh I agree. In the UK (during winter) the walk to school in both directions was in the dark - we've never had a dark morning or evening walk here :nice1

[Jacqi B]

As a SAD sufferer, hours of daylight are particularly important to me (quality of the light matters too, of course). I remembered that when my kiwi brother visit the UK in December/January years ago he was amazed at how early it got dark here. I gathered from that that the days must not be so short in NZ.

On 21st December last year I decided to check the sunrise/sunset times for the shortest day where I grew up, where Ilive now, for Wellington, for Auckland and for Christchurch

Bletchley: rise 08:13, set 15:49, hours of daylight = 7 hours 33 minutes
London: rise 08.04, set 15.54, hours of daylight = 7 hours 50 minutes
Wellington: rise 07:47, set 16:58, hours of daylight = 9 hours 11 minutes
Christchurch: rise 08:03, set 16:59, hours of daylight = 8 hours 56 minutes
Auckland: rise 07:33, set 17:11, hours of daylight = 9 hours 38 minutes

[JandM]

One thing we noticed when visiting Auckland in August was how abruptly it got dark - there wasn't the twilight we're used to in the south of England. Somebody switched the day off - click - at 6 o'clock. :)

[M-Squared]

Just 2 more days and we start getting more daylight! :nice1 :D

[tea drinker]

On UK BBC news this morning that days start drawing in from the next few days

[Rob&Don]

Just 2 more days and we start getting more daylight! :nice1 :D

2 more days and we start getting darker!! :(

[chocolate cake]

Yep, it's doesn't get as dark earlier in winter, Auckland anyway - I'm sure it's diff at bottom of the south island. On the other side of the coin we don't get those endlessly summer evenings either though.

Will be glad when shortest day is over next week that's for sure.

[enb]

Here's sunrise and sunset times for Invercargill today:
Sunrise 8:29 a.m.
Sunset 5:06 p.m
People who have SAD or hate grey cloud cover a lot of the time should consider living elsewhere in NZ. Don't get me wrong, Inver does get sunshine but there are a lot of grey days to make up for it. It's true what they say about the weather here resembling Scottish weather (ie rain, low grey cloud cover a lot of the time, generally cooler summers, coldish winters) ;)

[Mgee]

This might either depress or comfort you: :)
At the moment the sun hardly sets at all here up north. The length of the day is something like 19 hours, and it doesn't really get dark at all, we only get dusk for a few hours. I live in Southern Finland so we don't get the proper midnight sun, but it's not really dark either. I love it, but a couple of friends who have moved from abroad find it hard to go to sleep when it's not dark.

But we pay a price for these nightless summer nights. Around Xmas time we only get a few hours, 4-5 or so, of light (and that's by no means sunshine) every day. The rest of the time it's pitch dark. Up in Lapland they don't see the sun at all for around 3 months. :uhoh SAD is quite common here, and people nowadays use a lot of these sunlight-imitating lamps (don't know what they are called in English-speaking countries, here they are simply called brightlight lamps). I know I will miss the snow but definitely not the darkness of our winters!

[RJLink]

That is so wild. It's hard for me to imagine a 5-hour day or a 5-hour night. I'm not sure I could survive a winter like that! But I'd love the summer. I remember being down in Te Anau in January and it finally getting totally dark close to 11pm. That was great.

[MaryMc]

North Auckland - started to get dark last night about 5:50pm - completely dark 6pm.

Agree with the other poster - it gets dark so quickly - we've been here 19 years and that still AMAZES us!