Daylight Savings Time (Page 4/4)
Cliff Pennock DEC 15, 10:20 AM
It's been long proven that changing a person's day/night rhythm, causes all kinds of mental and physical problems. Switching to and from winter- and summertime (as we call it here) is absolutely pointless and makes no sense.

That said, I like "summertime". We live pretty far north meaning in the summer, we get sun up at around 4am and sun down at around 11pm (it in fact never gets really dark in the summer). I really like those long days and sun down at 11pm is just perfect.
Raydar DEC 15, 10:25 PM

quote
Originally posted by Cliff Pennock:
...

We live pretty far north meaning in the summer, we get sun up at around 4am and sun down at around 11pm (it in fact never gets really dark in the summer). I really like those long days and sun down at 11pm is just perfect.



Holy crap! That's great!

The tradeoff is the probably (I'm guessing) long cold winter.
Cliff Pennock DEC 16, 05:41 AM

quote
Originally posted by Raydar:

The tradeoff is the probably (I'm guessing) long cold winter.



Yes, summers are short and winters are long. However due to (thanks to?) climate change, temperatures have become pretty mild in the winters. In my youth, we had temperatures between 5*F and 25*F all winter long. We would have a feet of snow and we could skate on our canals and rivers for a few months at end. We used to have the Elfstedentocht almost yearly. It's a 120 mile marathon skating event going through eleven cities ("elf steden"). But for that to happen it has to be well below freezing for weeks at end. The last time we had the elfstedentocht was in 1997...

Now, temperatures below freezing are very rare and only occur at night. It has been at least 10 years since I last skated on natural ice and snow has become a rarity.

Our winters are the opposite of our summers. In the winter, we only get 7.5 hours of daylight. So my kids go to school in the morning when it's still dark and go home in the late afternoon when it's dark again.

Our summers used to be mild but our climate is slowly shifting to a tropical climate, meaning hot and very, very wet. This last summer was the wettest summer ever recorded (in the Netherlands). I'm not sure how much rain we had, but I can honestly say that I only remember a few dry days. But we also had record breaking temperatures. On september 10th, we reached a daytime temperature of 90*F which was the warmest day in september ever recorded. Our "late summer" has shifted from august to september. September used to be the first month we would need our winter coats again. Now we're regularly at the beach swimming in the sea in september.

I actually don't mind. I like higher temperatures and I love the long days in the summer. The only downside is the storms we are getting. Storms used to be a rarity here. Perhaps one every year. Now it seems that we have storms every other day or so and they are growing in severity. Last summer we had a storm that literally ripped out trees left and right. I was driving my car that day and it was very, very scary. At one point we got stuck on a roundabout because a tree fell on the road behind me, and other trees fell too causing us to be stuck.
Patrick DEC 19, 05:10 PM

quote
Originally posted by Cliff Pennock:

Our summers used to be mild but our climate is slowly shifting to a tropical climate, meaning hot and very, very wet. This last summer was the wettest summer ever recorded (in the Netherlands). I'm not sure how much rain we had, but I can honestly say that I only remember a few dry days. But we also had record breaking temperatures.



The temperatures here on the west coast of Canada have also risen considerably. Two years ago, we set an all time high in Lytton BC (95 miles from Vancouver) of 49.6 °C (121 °F).

However, whereas you're experiencing more rain with these higher temperatures, we're experiencing much less... which has led to catastrophic forest/wildfires all spring/summer/autumn.
ls3mach DEC 19, 11:05 PM

quote
Originally posted by Cliff Pennock:


Yes, summers are short and winters are long. However due to (thanks to?) climate change, temperatures have become pretty mild in the winters. In my youth, we had temperatures between 5*F and 25*F all winter long. We would have a feet of snow and we could skate on our canals and rivers for a few months at end. We used to have the Elfstedentocht almost yearly. It's a 120 mile marathon skating event going through eleven cities ("elf steden"). But for that to happen it has to be well below freezing for weeks at end. The last time we had the elfstedentocht was in 1997...

Now, temperatures below freezing are very rare and only occur at night. It has been at least 10 years since I last skated on natural ice and snow has become a rarity.

Our winters are the opposite of our summers. In the winter, we only get 7.5 hours of daylight. So my kids go to school in the morning when it's still dark and go home in the late afternoon when it's dark again.

Our summers used to be mild but our climate is slowly shifting to a tropical climate, meaning hot and very, very wet. This last summer was the wettest summer ever recorded (in the Netherlands). I'm not sure how much rain we had, but I can honestly say that I only remember a few dry days. But we also had record breaking temperatures. On september 10th, we reached a daytime temperature of 90*F which was the warmest day in september ever recorded. Our "late summer" has shifted from august to september. September used to be the first month we would need our winter coats again. Now we're regularly at the beach swimming in the sea in september.

I actually don't mind. I like higher temperatures and I love the long days in the summer. The only downside is the storms we are getting. Storms used to be a rarity here. Perhaps one every year. Now it seems that we have storms every other day or so and they are growing in severity. Last summer we had a storm that literally ripped out trees left and right. I was driving my car that day and it was very, very scary. At one point we got stuck on a roundabout because a tree fell on the road behind me, and other trees fell too causing us to be stuck.




I misread your post at first, but went back and realized you translated it for us Fahrenheiters! I kept thinking, 5 isn't below freezing.

I want to ask about the trees. Why do they not have feel roots? Is it the type, the way they're planted for the road, is that just normal for your country?

I've seen a lot of storms Oklahoma and Louisiana. Never anything like that with the trees though. I don't want to say it looks neat or beautiful, but it really looks both. Nothing like I can remember with hurricanes or tornadoes.
Cliff Pennock DEC 20, 04:45 AM

quote
Originally posted by ls3mach:

I want to ask about the trees. Why do they not have feel roots? Is it the type, the way they're planted for the road, is that just normal for your country?



Because of the type of soil we have in the Netherlands, houses are built on poles that go deep into the ground. Once the houses are built, trees are planted. Their roots don't have much room to grow however so they don't grow to be very big.

But due to the heavy rainfalls in the past decade, tree roots are rotting away (and so are the poles that houses are standing on, BTW). Also, due to the constant rains last summer, all trees still had all their leaves. And with wind speeds well over 90 mph, trees were falling left and right.
Patrick DEC 20, 05:36 AM

quote
Originally posted by Cliff Pennock:

Because of the type of soil we have in the Netherlands, houses are built on poles that go deep into the ground.



I suspect the bedrock there is way way down deep.

[This message has been edited by Patrick (edited 12-20-2023).]