So sunset on the 28th was at 16:40 and the daylight was 9hour 52mins.
So you’d think the clocks would go forward again at some sort of equal time.
Which if you went by sunset would be Jan 27th, or if you went by numbers of hours of daylight would be Feb 13th.
But for some reason it’s March 31st, which is silly.

Anyone know why it’s this daft?

It’s down to what time the sun comes up I think. In late October it starts getting hard to get up at 7am when it’s pitch dark, so the clocks going back is to mitigate that.

‘cos you can’t start UK ‘Summer Time’ in late January and not get laughed at?

‘cos you can’t start UK ‘Summer Time’ in late January and not get laughed at?

I don’t think we started it all all this year did we? I’m not laffin’ though. 🙁

what puzzles me is why don’t we just keep winter time during the summer and be done with it? Saying that i do enjoy the extra hour this side of the year.

This bothers me too. It always annoys me throughout March that it gets dark early in the evening even though the mornings have been plenty light enough for ages. Why does it not change back at the end of February instead? Bah.

It’s down to what time the sun comes up I think. In late October it starts getting hard to get up at 7am when it’s pitch dark, so the clocks going back is to mitigate that.

Just checked. The equal date then becomes 28th Feb. Still a month earlier than when they change forward.

But for some reason it’s March 31st, which is silly.

It’s down to what time the sun comes up I think. In late October it starts getting hard to get up at 7am when it’s pitch dark, so the clocks going back is to mitigate that.

Just checked. The equal date then becomes 28th March. Still a month earlier than when they change forward.

* Is confused.

** Edited to the correct date now 🙂

The shortest day isn’t actually the earliest sunset or the latest sunrise, they are reached at different days. Don’t know if that’s why, but changing the clocks in the winter is a horrible relic anyway. If the Scots get independence then the only possible reason to keep it disappears.

daylight savings, GMT, BST, whatever…

it’s all completely ballsed up, don’t expect it to make any sense.

whenever anyone suggests having a good think about the best way to make use of the hours of daylight, some lots of idiots start blithering on about how dark it gets in winter …. completely missing the point.

the point: using the darkest days of winter as the basis for your system to make the best use of daylight through the year is completely stupid.

First day of going home in the dark 🙁
I’d wondered about hthe original post too.

If the Scots get independence then the only possible reason to keep it disappears.

Nope – the clocks change on the same day throughout Western Europe. clicky

First day of going home in the dark

But on the plus side, get to use my new 800 lumen commuter lights for the first time in anger 🙂

I have the answer now.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32000L0084:EN:HTML
And the reasoning seems to be along the lines of what wwaswas said.

First day of going home in the dark

Some of us have been going home in the dark for a couple of weeks now. It was nice to get to work in the relative light today though.