You’re just like almost there, that graph isn’t about lengths of days. It’s an arbitrary representation of what someone would consider a “normal” time for the sun to set and rise. The gradient in colors is because of the shape of the earth, the blocky lines are probably the cut off counties/states that follow different timezones (would need to verify source for that though). I’ve gotta split but hopefully someone can explain it better in the mean time if you have more questions.
Thank you. You did a great job explaining it.
The gradients change based on time zones. You’ll see how they line up.
Walking over a time zone line changes time one hour, but the sunset time doesn’t magically change an hour.
Like say you are standing between Georgia and Alabama. If you walk into Georgia the sun will set at around 5:30pm EST. If you walk into Alabama the sun will set at around 4:30pm CST.
The sun is setting one hour earlier in Alabama but you are basically watching the exact same sunset.
As you go further west into Alabama the time zone change “makes more sense” because the time zone being exactly between Alabama and Georgia doesn’t make sense other than them being separate states.
Geez. that timezone separation is more fucked than I realized lol. I’ve lived in different time zones but always near the center of it and I didn’t know there was such awful cut offs that zigzag through states like that. Sucks that user stayed hostile though, not sure if they just want to argue about everything timezone related or just too embarrassed to gracefully exit.
They have to start and stop somewhere is the problem and you don’t want half a city or town using two different times. Imagine if the hardware store on one side of town closed at 8 EST and the mall on the other closed at 8 CST. Theoretically, they could be right next to each other even. For example, if you lived by the hardware store but worked at the mall, things would be a mess.
So really not awful cut offs but more weird cut offs. Because making standard cut offs doesn’t make it any better. Kind of like, best they can be with current system.
I find time zones and everything so interesting and that people don’t understand it at all. Some people will say “I hate daylight savings time” when they like the extra hour of light in the evening but hate changing their clocks. They like DST but hate changing the clocks and probably want to stay on DST always.
There’s no best way to do it. It’s all preference.
I compared Sioux Falls SD to Rapid City SD in another comment on this thread. If Rapid City was CST like Sioux Falls the sun would set 25 minutes later in Rapid City, but since it is MST the sun sets 35 minutes before.
You also got to think some start work at 8 some start at 9. If you start at 9, you’re more likely in favor of DST.
Yeah a lot of misinformation around DST. People don’t like being wrong and I guess the image didn’t fit what they wanted to be right. Oh well lol