Daylight returns to Barrow, AK on 1/23/08!!!

[jinftl]

With the sun angle inching higher in the Northern Hemisphere, Barrow, AK will see its first sunrise since 11/18/07 this coming Wednesday, January 23rd at 1:12 PM!!!

Barrow NWS link:
http://pabr.arh.noaa.gov/

Barrow live webcam:
http://db.aoos.org/webcam/latest/ABCam.jpg

[tropicana]

if i were them, i'd be so excited i wont be able to sleep from now til then. Can you imagine the disappointment then when its all overcast, as it probably will be.

[HURAKAN]

My question for anyone living above the Arctic Circle is how do you continue with your normal living, work schedule, when you're always in darkness, or always with sunshine?

I feel that a human that has always lived between the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, it will feel very awkward to not see a sunrise every morning and a sunset every afternoon.

[JonathanBelles]

I could live up there...it would remind me too much of the movie 30 days of night.

[senorpepr]

While I can't fully speak for those who live in the Arctic, I have experienced similar live myself. With my job, I rotate shifts frequently. For the past few years, I've been working three-month rotations that consist of day shifts (7am - 3pm), swing shifts (3pm - 11pm), and mid shifts (11pm - 7am).

I have found that whenever mid shifts and wintertime coexist, I live without sunlight for weeks. By the time I get home at work (7:10am), it's still dark outside and I immediately go to bed. By the time I wake up (4 or 5pm), it's already sunset. This was even worse when I lived in Germany. Often, I found myself without ANY daylight. I'd go to bed at work before dawn and wake up after dusk.

It starts to affect me after a week or so. I can't really say that I'm depressed, but that's probably the best word that I can think of to describe it. Eventually, trade off sleep for a little bit of sunlight, just to get the body going again. Bottomline, however, you just have to deal with it. I kept reminding myself that while it sucks during the winter, I make up for it with longer days in the summer.

[Aslkahuna]

The worst thing for me in Germany would be working the mids and see the Sun come up and know that I still had half of my shift left.

Steve

[Ed Mahmoud]

I'd move if I lived in Alaska. Even with a check from the state each year, the painfully low humidity, long winters, short summers, bad male-female ratio, lack of pro sports. I'd have to move.

[senorpepr]

The worst thing for me in Germany would be working the mids and see the Sun come up and know that I still had half of my shift left.

Steve

Yeah, that was definitely a problem during the Summer while working mids.