Waiting for Sunrise Near the Russian Arctic

 

http://www.google.ru/imgres/StudentDoc/Archives/mbarraga/continents.

Russian Exaggerated Time.

Our time zone should be called Russian Exaggerated Time.  The problem goes back to initiatives of Peter the Great, Joseph Stalin, and Dmitry Medvedev.

Our second winter of year-long summer time is enervating.   Larissa and I feel time is disappearing, flying by...poof!  We have given in to sleeping way late, sometimes not getting our of bed until after 10 AM.

First, in 1703 Peter founded St Petersburg just 7 degrees from the Arctic Circle.  Next, Stalin in 1930 added an hour to what was sensible standard time.  And then Medvedev  added another hour in 2011!

St Petersburg’s location in such a northern latitude makes time coordination with central Russia difficult.  Arctic Climatology and Meteorology states... 

The Arctic Circle is an imaginary line that marks the latitude above which the sun does not set on the day of the summer solstice (usually 21 June) and does not rise on the the day of the winter solstice (usually 21 December).

My Calculation. The Arctic Circle is moving approximately 50 feet north every year, that’s almost two miles since Peter the Great established St Petersburg in 1703.

The northern latitudes experience accelerating sunrise – and shorter days – until the winter solstice.  St Petersburg’s shortest day in 2012 was December 21, and the latest sunrise was 1101 from December 23 through 30.  Twilight on either side of sunrise and sunset gives us some light during two to three hours from dawn to sunrise and from sunset to dusk.

I first saw a far northern sky while on the USS Bordelon in 1969 when we were approaching our incursion of the Arctic Circle.  The St Petersburg sky is similar now... light blue, with clouds hanging in the cold air, wispy, white and moving little.  The sun throughout the day stays close to the horizon.

The latest civil time sunrise in the world that I’ve found for December 21st is at Umba, Russia, just south of the Circle, at 1240 PM.  Vorkuta, just inside the Arctic Circle, is in darkness until its next sunrise the day after Christmas.  Murmansk, within the Arctic Circle, has no daylight whatsoever  from December 1 through January 10.   

How Russia could make telling time so awkward?

The two extra hours added to our time are especially difficult for Russia’s cities close to the Arctic Circle.  St Petersburg’s sunrise is approximately two hours off solar time, but Moscow’s at this time of year is only around one hour.

St Petersburg’s time zone, Moscow Time, jibed with western Russia’s longitude range until June 21, 1930 when it was advanced an hour year-round changing it from 2 to 3 hours later than London.   Then another hour was added with Dimitry Medvedev’s decree in 2011. 

True solar time for the December 21 sunrise is 905 AM but on the civic clock that’s 11 AM!  Oslo Norway, on the same latitude as St Petersburg, but at around 20 degrees longitude west, observes civil sunrise on December 21 at  918. 

Adjusting to whacky man made time...

You might say... Well, why not pretend that standard civil time is closer to solar time and just subtract a few hours at this time of year from the clock, and get up at 8 (resulting ) as you did before?  It isn’t so easy as people and institutions beyond our apartment insist on observing civil time.

My step-father, Ray Clarke told about  his early years in Atlantic Highlands NJ.  His grandpa hated Daylight Savings Time so he carried two watches in his vest pockets... one on his right for government Daylight Savings, the one to his left for true Standard Time... a true curmudgeon! 

Fact Check!  Years later I asked Ray if his account was true.  He hesitated, smiled, and quietly said, No.

Arguments for a change back...

People need to wake up and get safely to school or work.  The general feeling in St Petersburg is that the extra winter daylight time added to short winter afternoons isn’t worth the later mornings.

We are that much further separated from Western Europe, Britain, and the US.  Emails to California can require a longer wait for an answer.

How I deal with Russian Exaggerated Time...

Every morning I check with the website Time and Date [click here], and write the civil times of sunrise, sunset, and solar noon at the top of my memo book.  Then I subtract 1200 from the solar noon time to find the difference between official civil time and real solar time.

What will be the future of time measurement in Russia?

It appeared this fall that Medvedev’s decree would be reversed.  Now any action seems unlikely.  If it were up to me I would abolish both extra hours and work to make civil time closer to solar time.

Further reading.

Over the years this has been a favorite topic of mine.  You  may enjoy these posts from other years... Just click on the title.

The Solstice in St Peters.burg

Watch Out for the Solstice!

Bargain Heating Bills in St Petersburg!

Russian time changes a final time, now told with fewer watches!

Sliding Into a Cold Dark Winter of the Russian North

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Sliding into a cold dark winter of the Russian north...

Setting moon tending towards waning gibbous, dawn 1051, 12 December, NW St Petersburg.  Taken 1 1/2 days after the full moon and total lunar eclipse (obscured by skies) around 630 pm 10 December.

Barking at the full moon eclipse...

The Cold, Long Night, or Frost Moon are names for the full moon closest to the winter solstice, this year on December 10...  when there was also a total lunar eclipse! Full moons occurs when the moon is most opposite the sun during its 29.5 day cycle.

The last few nights I couldn’t sleep much until after 2 pm.  I felt a strong magnetic pull that wouldn’t let me relax, and recalled that around now would be another full moon.  I am what the Russians call a lunatic, with no aspersions intended.

Further north than a Maine winter...

Russians,  Alaskan Americans, Icelanders, Fins, Norwegians, Swedes, and Scots all live in the North... some with equanimity!

Latitude	City	Population
68 58	Murmansk	308,000
64 32	Archangel	349,000
64 08	Reykjavik	120,000
62 12	Helsinki	589,000
61 13	Anchorage	292,000
59 57	St Petersburg	4,800,000
59 55	Oslo	1,442,000
59 21	Stockholm	851,000
55 57	Edinburgh	486,000

Russians are not the only ones with a dark winter.

I remember Larissa once said ‘It’s amazing that people will live anywhere, in the worse climates and in bad conditions’.  Well, it’s amazing that I now live in the unappealing cold and unattractive conditions of the Russian north!

But even with the flat topography... clusters of drab, grey high rises... city sand, dirt, and disorganization... given a will to be cheerful and positive, life can be pleasant and often happy in the forbidding North.

Less light, little sun, poor visibility...

We are fast approaching the shortest day of the year, 22 December.  Dawn will be at 1100 and sunset will happen at 456 pm.  Winter will start that day at 930 am.

Now there’s no sun rise, just a subtle lightening in the east.  It’s rare to see even a soft glow of sunshine, because the sun arcs close to the horizon. What little sun appears is masked by the high rise apartments.

Even during daylight, it’s quite dark. In the middle of the day my camera’s flash goes off. Electric light is sponged by the darkness, seeps away, and things are harder to see unless you are next to a bright bulb.

Black clothes, dangerous crossing conditions, and some atrocious driving...

Black is the favorite clothing shade in Russia... not visible to cars when crossing the street, but otherwise practical as it doesn’t get discolored by polluted rain and snow.

It’s that time of the year when I’m only cozy outside with my black, long thermal jacket from Poland, which includes an excellent hood.  If conditions get severe, it has a second zip in lining.

It’s rare to see reflective material on children’s jackets, which are usually dark also.  There are no crossing guards at the faded zebra crossings near schools.  I see children run across the roads far from intersections, no matter what the weather or darkness.  

In Russia, pedestrians do not have the right of way.  Many drivers have only been behind the wheel ten years or less but drive aggressively, with little appreciation of the rules of the road.  Drivers routinely turn into and cross the path of pedestrians obeying the green light.

The unofficial crossing near our apartment on busy Cizova Prospect has no red light or zebra  stripes.  After dawn I was on my way across the road when I saw an old man with a cane  moving towards me, gesturing for me to help him the rest of the way.  I grabbed his arm, held up my crossing guard hand to stop rapidly approaching traffic, and got the grateful old guy safely to the sidewalk.

The day I wrote this part, a girl was hit crossing the road down by the other supermarket. 

Better to not fight it, slow down, and enjoy life indoors.

This is a time of year to sleep in, be lazy, maybe give in to melancholy.  Serotonin which helps a good mood is in short supply in our brains.  It’s frequent to hear people saying they are under the weather...aches, pains, low moods.

There just isn’t enough daylight now to stimulate the body to make adequate Vitamin D, and there’s little fortification of milk or cereal here.  We eat a lot of cheese and fish, and  take some omega 3 fish oil pills.

Our parakeets, Kesha and Noosha, are less active with lessening light.  Lazy birds now, they sleep in late, eat less, and aren’t as excited about their pieces of apple, hanging celery, or other greens.

How do we survive the dark, cold, and gloom?

Reading is my best escape.  I send and receive books with Book Mooch, get others from a yearly sale at the International Woman’s Club, and trade with a British expat friend.

I’ve recently ordered around 30 books with my Mooch points.  I enjoy the emails while arranging these swaps.  It gets me out of the apartment to send and receive Mooches at the local post office, giving me much needed exercise.

I appreciate time in the kitchen.  Recently I put together another variation of spaghetti sauce ...this time with crushed rosemary, the tastiest sauce yet!

Happiness depends on your mood.

On waking, start with a self-willed good mood, try to be cheerful, and be sure to find activities you enjoy.  Whatever climate and conditions you live in, you can with fortitude, mood, and some good luck, find the living pretty good in most places in the world.

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Laconic Reports of a Record St Petersburg Winter, with 2000 shovels

 

Including valuable information about Heating Degree Days and Ice Thickness!


                 

Our snow covered windowsill with frosted trees and a frozen courtyard, 10 Jan 2010
 
If America is a land of too much, sometimes Russia is a land of too little.  That too little can be not enough information.  What's  missing in weather reports in St Petersburg shows more about Russia.

Verbose prognostications...

I remember 5 to 15 minute weather spots with Uncle Weatherbee, Storm Field, and a succession of weather 'girls'.  I used to complain to my mother that they spent way too much time with diagrams of Highs and Lows, isobars lines of equal atmospheric pressure... and fronts of cold and warm air lines with attached triangles and semi-circles when all I wanted to know was... Is it going to rain tomorrow?
 
Much or Not Much doesn't say much!

As with some other things, my simple wish was granted... but too far. Russiya TV and radio stations routinely give  a high and low for cities with not much snow, не болшой спег  after each range of high to low temperatures.  It's particularly difficult to distinguish whether the announcer says не болшой or just болшой.  Heaven help you if you make noise when Larissa is listening to Mayak Маяк, Lighthouse  and this clip of words is drowned by your noise! 

Радио Петербург, Radio Peterburg,  gives a longer forecast, around a minute.  St Petersburgers care desperately what the weather will be as it determines sweater, coat, scarf, hat, and glove choices for the day. 

Question... So why is weather information so hard to come by in Russia? 

Some possible reasons...

The culture isn't naturally innovative.  People have trouble visualizing another way to do something as simple as a weather forecast.  The media are missing an untapped advertising market that could be easily replicated by a week's observations in New York.

A landmark winter...

Expatriates, tourists, and poets are surprised yet pleased to be part of the coldest, deepest, and most chaotic winter since the first year of the Leningrad Blockade in 1941-42.  Now St Petersburgers have food and heat and aren't being bombed, so there is no comparison to that horrible yet heroic time.

St Petersburg's winters of note are 1883, the early 1940's, 1963, 1986-87 and 2009-10.  We have to go back to the early 1880's to match the snowfall of 2010.  

For those who have to get to work or carry heavy plastic shopping bags there is more aggravation than wonder about the record weather.

Since November 27 we have had only five days with lows less than -10 C, during the January thaw, from the 12th to 16th.  Today's low is -27 C  (-16.6 F)...  classic Russian cold!

Russian Winter Mystique

I know many places in America get phenomenal amounts of snow, high winds, and bitter cold.

Question...  So why is there a conception that Russia has the Worst Winter Weather?

Answer...    Because of winter's length... it's severity and persistence!

St Petersburg, close to the ameliorating effects of the Gulf of Finland, is next to the 60th parallel of latitude.  Half of Russia is north of 60° latitude.  This far northern half, along with the great expanse to the east through Siberia, represents frozen Mother Russia, the panorama of Pasternak's Dr Zhivago.

Even at 57° latitude in Tverskaya Oblast, where we summer, there are only a few months of sunny good weather. 

Russia overall has two main seasons... two to three months of summer, a long fall and spring with rainy drab cold on both sides of three months of winter.  Russians consider June 1 summer, September 1 the start of fall.


Winter Indicators in St Petersburg...

Cumulative snowfall
                 
Petersburg had around 50 cm (20 inches) by 10 January... not a lot by American standards, but much more than the usual 14 cm.  But the city called it a snow siege when around 35 cm (14 inches) fell during the last December weekend.  The opposition party suggested that some of the budgeted snow plows were never purchased. 

Smolny, the city administration, dispatched city workers and asked for military help to clear the roads.  They gave 2,000 shovels to volunteers that promised to help, one shovel for every 2,500 
people.  We don't know how successful this gifting of shovels was.¹

¹   St Petersburg Times, 28 December 09, Gail Stolyarova
 
HDD...Heating Degree Days

Heating degree days are the span between the temperature outside and the ideal temperature inside.  They are an absolute measurement that can be accessed easily on your computer for any city in the world. ²

²  Only Mongolia has a higher HDD annual average than Russia... 6681.

It seems that weather information is the only kind that rarely has been restricted, so there is little residual bureaucracy to hinder release of this data. 

Today it is -23 C (-9.4 F) outside our apartment.  We want it a cozy +20 C inside.  Allowing for body and machine heat generation of three degrees... we need to add +23 to +17 = 40 Heating Degree Days.
               
Average annual Russia Heating Degree Days      year 2009...5235 (USA 2159). 
Average annual St Petersburg HDD........................last year.... 4424

The cities, mainly responsible for providing heat, are at a disadvantage as it costs a lot to stay warm. Tax revenues are down because of the economic crisis, and heating degree days are up 21% for December 2009 as compared to December 2008 in St Petersburg.

December 2008 SPB 527 Heating Degree Days.
December 2009 SPB 667 HDD 3

³ You can find HDD for your locality on http://www.degreedays.net, by BizEE Software.
                                             
Days of snow cover 
                
123 is the average amount.  This year it may be much more.

Ice depth

The Russian Epiphany, Крещенские морозы, January 19 is twelve days after Orthodox Christmas. This time between the 7th and 19th is often the coldest of the winter.  The church relates it to the baptism of baby Jesus in the Jordan River.  

Hearty Religious immerse themselves through the ice in the Neva, other water bodies, and in tanks in some churches.  All water that day is considered potentially holy.  People collect it in jars to splash around homes and on the sick and any other loved ones that will hold still.

Holes in the ice are not only access for worshipers and winter swimmers...the Russki walruses, called morzi, моржи ... , but for fish to be pulled out! 


The Neva freezes between 25 Nov and 5 Dec and stays frozen till mid April.  There is plenty of time and cold to make for thick ice. 

This year the fisherman have to drill through around a meter of ice with a wide bit that allows them to get their catch.  A strong fisherman using a sharp hand augur can cut through a meter of ice in a few minutes. 

Other years I have seen these quiet grizzly individuals on the metro and electrichka, often packing some voda, their antifreeze.  Hand augurs stick out from their packs.
Icicle size                                  

Icicles hanging high from building are large enough to be deadly.  A woman pedestrian was killed instantly by such an icicle two weeks ago.

Tip... When in SPB in the winter, always walk on the street side of the walkway, well away from falling icicles, house plants, vodka bottles.
 
The usual method of clearing icicles was observed by an American missionary living in St Petersburg... http://lizinstpete.blogspot.com. Two women hold a warning tape at street level which they move below as a man chops icicles from roofs.

Scientists study icicles for climate information, pollution studies, and to improve roof design.

Can ice support a train?

One travel article states that winter trains in the east are rerouted over solid rivers and lakes to avoid the drifts and avalanches of their usual routes.  I haven't been able to substantiate this account, but it is theoretically possible as loaded train axle weight varies from around 17 to 100 tons.

Ice Strength Chart... Do not try this at home!

Thickness/Permissible Load (clear, blue, lake ice)

2"  -      5.08 cm        One person on foot
3" -       7.62 cm        Group, in single file
5" -     12.70 cm        Group              (6-8 people together)
7½" -  19.05 cm        Passenger car    (2 ton gross)
8"       20.32 lcm       Light truck         (2½ ton gross)
10" -   25.40 cm        Medium truck     (3½ ton gross)
12" -   30.48 cm        Heavy truck       (7 to 8 ton gross)
15" -   38.10 cm        10 tons
20" -   50.80 cm        25 tons
25" -   63.50 cm        45 tons
30" -   76.20 cm        70 tons
39.3"      1.00 m        more than a breadbox!

At the Water

 

Copied... with centimeter equivalents,meter entry, and flip comments added by Loquacious... from  a blog by Richard Atwater, a Navy retiree living in rural Minnesota.  Impressive bird photography.

 

There is a lot of intriguing, amusing information about the weather in Russia.  I hope that soon there will be  more complete reports in St Petersburg. 

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The Winter Solstice in St Petersburg

TThe winter solstice is a good time to look at how decreasing light and colder weather affects people in St. Petersburg. I`ve been sleeping longer and more soundly... a sort of hibernation. With less than six hours of light the day flies by. We have breakfast before sunrise, consisting of oatmeal, toast with cheese, and tea. I check news on the internet, and then we bundle up for a walk in Udenya Park, shop at Season, and return for abed, the meal Russians have around 2 PM . This time of year we have dark, twilight, and dark again with rarely any sunshine. I'm researching if the weather has deteriorated in SPB with the exponential growth of car traffic and increased pollution. As far as I know there are no exhaust tests on any vehicles. It seems we are in an area inclined to temperature inversions, a lot of rain and snow, and resulting unhealthy weather.
Russians tell me June 1 marks the beginning of summer and December 1 the beginning of winter. This is unscientific but reflects how seasons work here. Our summer on the Volga usually lasts June and July and then with August the water turns colder and we often slide into bad weather. Natives of "Peter" or Leningrad love the ideal winter of snow on the ground and a steady -5 degrees, which they view as healthy and pretty. Certainly the air is cleaner after a snowfall and much of the unsightliness is covered until a thaw.
Reading novels and time in the kitchen keep my spirits up, but admittedly this can be a difficult time what with relatives far away and no longer attainable daydreams of Christmas often surfacing. I tried to buy some holiday music but found none, so thought of internet radio... which has plenty! I hope any readers of this have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!