Progress of any kind might be hard to see at first, but perhaps Friday showed that Washington is making gains against winter darkness. Friday showed that the sun is starting to set noticeably later, and that the dark days of the city’s earliest sunsets have been left behind with the old year.
It was a winter day in Washington on Friday, and cold was all about. The temperature started out in the dark morning in the freezing 20s, and through late afternoon had not climbed out of the fairly cold 30s.
The day’s high reading did almost touch 40. At 39 degrees, it was obviously close. But 40 it was not, and it fell six degrees short of the normal high temperature for the District on the second day of the new year. That normal figure is 45.
But the sunset. If progress was being made Friday against the armaments of winter, if there was progress against the darkness and the cold, it could be seen in the sunset.
The sun sank in the southwestern sky at only three minutes before 5 p.m. Friday, according to the timeandate website. In an absolute sense, this may still be startlingly and lamentably early.
But a glance at forthcoming sunset times demonstrates that the sunset hour has been trending in what many would call a positive direction. At its earliest, according to the website, it came last month at 4:45 p.m.
The chariot of Apollo, as the ancients sometimes thought of it, has now begun lingering for 12 more minutes. Moreover, Jan. 5 is but three days away. On that propitious date, according to timeanddate, begin the times in Washington of the 5 p.m. sunset. It then gets later and later.
(It should be noted, however, that part of this is owed to peculiarities of the Earth’s orbit around the sun, while the rate of growth in daylight is less dramatic.)
Visually, the quality of the sunset is not so readily identified as its quantitative parameters. If every day, however dull it may seem, possesses some attractions, it may be that the sunset is often most prominent among them.
Clouds often streaked the sky Friday, and seemed at times to fill it with diffuse grayness. But as 5 p.m. approached, the sky had lots of room in the southwest to reveal daylight giving way to darkness.
In the southwest, as the sun went down, brilliant orange light striped the horizon. The fire of the setting sun silhouetted a strip of cloud, making it a streak of blackness running across the last blaze of sunshine.
It seemed an abstract design in black and orange. In a way it might have symbolized something about winter.
That sight, the parallel stripes, bound together, suggested a color scheme familiar and recognizable from nature. It might even have been a kind message from the season. Possibly the orange and black was a reminder that winter can summon the ferocity of the tiger.
But at the same time it was evident that the hour of sunset was coming later.
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