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Comment by NorwegianDude | Hacker News Reader

It's always interesting how it affects how people think about the day. If you look outside and it's dark then it's easy to think that the day is basically over, even though the time might say otherwise.

I really appreciate the long winter nights and long summer days in Norway. Being able to wake up to the sun as early as 04 and enjoy it until after 23 is great, and the UV is only high during the middle of the day. Long summer days are awesome. Long winter nights are probably not as appreciated, but I enjoy those too.

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Fifteen years ago, I moved from Orlando to Seattle, and almost 20 degree change in latitude. On top of that, Orlando is famously hot and sunny and Seattle famously cold, cloudy, and rainy.

Despite that huge change, I adapted to the new climate just fine. I don't mind the gloom or the cold. The six months of gray skies don't get my down like they do a lot of people.

But even after a decade, I still haven't gotten used to how much the day length changes. Every summer my brain keeps expecting the sun to go down any second now while it sits up there near the horizon giving an extra two hours of daylight. Every winter it feels like the sun disappears too early.

Seattle’s climate is a joy.

It’s rarely super hot or super cold like a lot of places.

You get these ridiculously long summer days that last forever. It’s perfect for athletics and hiking and spending time on the water.

And likewise you get these wonderfully wet and dark winters which are perfect for life’s other joys: coding, reading, playing video games, boardgames, drinking coffee, etc.

I love places like San Diego / LA but I wouldn’t want to live in a place that is always a perfect summer day.

I was in Seattle Sept-Dec of 2008 on an internship and I remember feeling some of this. Based on what people had said, I was geared up for four months of a soggy, misty mess, but it wasn't that at all— the autumn there was splendid, with tons of breezy, cool days where the sun still shone, with the trees around my place in Madrona showing brilliant colour for weeks on end.

San Diego is months of June Gloom and other Seattle-reminiscent weather, and some sunny days.

Unless you're inland, where it's ninety billion degrees in the shade half the year.

Nice place.

That's much of the west coast (west of the cascades). I moved from Seattle to the Bay Area, and it's basically the same weather except somewhat shorter summer days and winter nights, WAY more sunshine, and generally about 10f warmer. Except in the summers where these days it seems like Seattle has more 95+ degree days than the peninsula does.

Definitely unpopular opinion.

I love 4 seasons. But the weather and day length make for a difficult half-year from Oct - Mar. The NE corridor has some of these traits, but it was a lot easier to deal with there. In the NE, rain & grey-skies aren't as persistent. In Seattle, a month can go by without seeing the sun.

The downside of the historically mild climate is a lot of older homes weren't built with energy efficiency in mind and now in 2025 we have to deal with that inefficiency on our energy bills :'(

It's the same in the UK vs Southern Europe and Japan where I've lived before. People complain about the wet weather, but it's not that IMO what really gets to you, it's the dark winters with so little daylight compounded with the abundance of cloudy days.

Temperature-wise, most of the UK is actually quite moderate compared to central Europe. It's winter darkness that gets to you.

To put it in perspective, Paris is further north than Seattle.

I think what's fascinating about it is the daylight changes you experienced in the 20 deg latitude change you experience from Orlando to Seattle are dwarfed by the changes from a ~15 degree latitude change from Seattle to Anchorage. By the time you're getting close to the pole, you can see huge differences in solstice minimum/maximum sunlight by moving just a few hundred miles north or south.

As someone who moved to Norway. The only thing that's strange to me about the length of day/night... Is that we do daylight savings here.

Why? What help does it make adding one extra hour to the start of the day, when the day lasts like ~4 hours.

Could be so the time is better synchronised with the rest of Europe, which is relevant for business reasons. I seem to recall reading recently about some other country doing exactly that (though it wasn’t Norway).

Mexico used to have daylight savings even though they're close enough to the equator that it doesn't make sense - that's to harmonize with the US. When they did have daylight savings time, though, the state of Sonora didn't, because it borders Arizona, which doesn't.

For economic harmony with EU.

Yeah, I hate it. I don't need more light in the morning, I'd rather have that as a bit more visibility when skiing after work. And it anyways only takes like two weeks before the gained light in the morning is gone.

https://www.timeanddate.no/astronomi/sol/norge/oslo

25th of october day is from 08:21-17:39, 26th of october from 07:24-16:36 after dst, and then 17th of November we're at 08:19-15:43 (so back to dark mornings). I'd rather the 17th have light until 16:43.

I'm trying to find the darkest corner of the earth to chill in so I can actually get some work done. I can't get anything done when the sun is out and people are out and about. Maybe I'll move to that Italian village that has the giant sun mirror thing.

I personally like extremes. My ideal scenario would be a dark room where I can get work done, and then every hour or so, I take a five-minute break outdoors in direct sunlight.

I spend most of the day in a fairly dark room, but make sure to get at least 20 minutes of sunlight on my bare skin and eyes every other day -- but it's not because I like extremes: it is because sunlight is good for me, but LED light bulbs are bad for me or at least they are if they are of typical brightness and they are on most of the day.

Seattle says hi.

I was under the impression that Seattle was ultra sunny.

July - September, yes, we have oppressive sunshine.

Spring/fall tend to be cloudy & rainy, and November to February-ish is referred to as "the big dark" - the days are short and the sun is low and obscured by clouds when it's above the horizon. Sounds like you'd get a lot done then (as do many people here).

Calgary, AB enters the chat: Calgary, Alberta, is considered the sunniest city in Canada, with an average of 333 sunny days and 2,396 hours of sunshine annually.

Rjukan, Norway. Dark half the year, cheap real estate and comes with mirrors.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170314-the-town-that-bu...

Ah that's the one I was thinking of. I'm seriously considering it.

I live at ~64 deg latitude in the USA (Alaska) and 100% agree with everything you said. The timing of sunset has such a profound effect on when you consider the day "done". In Dec it's painful to haul myself outside at 5 or 6 PM since it's "night time" already. Meanwhile in June, at 11PM/23:00 when it's still bright out I have to remind myself to home and go to bed so I'm not a tired wreck at work the next day :)

I really struggle with this at daylight savings switches when I work in offices where I can see a window. It takes me a couple of weeks to adjust. In one direction I find I work later than I intended. In the other direction I find myself ready to leave and realize it's only 4:30

I tend to lean into it, though that’s of course not an option for most people.

My buddy went to Norway and was super upset because the sun never set in the part of Norway he was staying in and he had no idea it would be daylight almost the majority if not the entire day. He also said his Norwegian family was getting upset with him because he wasn't sleeping and keeping everyone up due to his lack of day/night reference.

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