Daylight Hours Australia and the UK, Winter and Summer Compared

Today I am going to be comparing sunrise times and (here’s one I watched earlier) sunset times…

… between Australia and the UK for both winter and summer.

In an ideal world, according to scientists, it is believed that as humans we would work most optimally if we got up in the morning as the sun rose and went to bed at night when the sun set. In our modern world though, that very rarely happens. But how close could our respective countries be to that ideal?

I seem to remember in the UK during the middle of winter that it got light some time around 8 o’clock in the morning and was dark again before 4 o’clock in the afternoon. No chance of getting up and going back to bed with the sun there then.

In fact it was difficult to even avoid children having to walk to school or walk home from school in the dark. Sometimes it was even difficult to avoid these kids from having to do both.

But is my memory correct? Let’s look at some facts.

Sunrise and sunset times for three United Kingdom cities

First I should remind you that the UK only has one time zone, but like parts of Australia, they do have summer/winter times. During winter they use Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and in the summer British Summer Time (BST). For the UK, I will be looking at Plymouth in the West Country, London the capital, and Aberdeen which is in Scotland, the northern end of the UK.

I will be using 15 July for summer and 15 January for winter. Let’s go…

That was pretty easy and straightforward. Now for Australia.

Slightly more complicated, we have more time zones than you can shake a stick at and, as already mentioned, some put their clocks forward for summertime, some don’t. But of course, you know that, I went through it all in my post Australia Versus the UK: Time Zones Explained.

Sunrise and sunset times for Australia’s major cities

Note: all times are locally adjusted for either summer or winter. I am also using 15th of January for summer and 15 July for winter; it would be insane not to make that adjustment.

Another note: I hope I’ve got all of these correct, but please understand there have been a lot of times and time zones to look up and adjust and then add to these charts. It is possible I may have made a mistake somewhere because there were times when I really didn’t know what time it was.

I am confident it is all good, but if anyone does spot a mistake, please do let me know.

Conclusion

I think there are many conclusions to draw from all this, where to start?

Maybe it’s best we draw our own conclusions; here’s what I thought, being a resident of Brisbane.

• I wish we had Daylight Saving Time (DST) equivalent of BST in Brisbane
• I am envious of Hobart’s sunrise and sunset times in summer in Australia
• I am envious of Darwin’s sunrise and sunset times in winter in Australia
• Summer sunset times in the UK better than here in Australia
• Winter sunset times in the UK are worse than here in Australia
• Brisbane has the worst sunset time in winter in all of Australia, but it’s still better than the UK
• Brisbane has the worst sunset time in summer in all of Australia and all of the UK
• In Brisbane I have absolutely no chance of getting up with the sun and going to bed at sunset, trying to do so would simply be insane. Sorry scientists, good idea though
• I thank Edison for the lightbulb
• Finally, and maybe the most important point of all, daylight is not the same as sunlight. That’s a different subject and one which I looked at in my post called Sunny Days: England Versus Australia Compared. It is why I can forgive Brisbane for its poor performance is in these sunrise and sunset comparisons.

What conclusions do you draw?

My thanks to timebie.com and timeanddate.com for the data.