Have you noticed the days are getting longer?  Right across New Zealand the sun is rising earlier and setting later as we slowly grind towards Spring.

WeatherWatch.co.nz has crunched the numbers and worked out just how much more daylight we’re getting compared to the shortest day of the year which was just over a month ago.

• Auckland:  An extra 27 minutes of sunlight.
• Wellington:  An extra 32 minutes of sunlight.
• Christchurch:  An extra 35 minutes of sunlight.
• Dunedin:  An extra 38 minutes of sunlight.
• Invercargill:  40 minutes of extra sunlight.

Currently southern New Zealand has around 9 and a quarter hours of sunlight a day while northern New Zealand has just over 10 hours.  This is due to the tilt of the earth and while winter days are darker in the south the trend is reversed in summer where the sun’s up for 14hours 41minutes in Auckland on the longest day of the year (Dec 22) but over an hour longer in Invercargill where daylight hours last 15 hours 49 minutes.

The days are currently getting longer by about 1 and a half to 2 minutes a day (between 11 and 16 minutes a week) and that time is speeding up every 24 hours as the sun continues its journey towards spending more time in the southern hemisphere than the northern hemisphere. 

This happens on the Spring Equinox in late September – which is when many people celebrate the start of spring (the astronomical start of spring).

WeatherWatch.co.nz observes the meteorological start of Spring which in New Zealand is on September 1st – and some argue in northern centres like Auckland and Northland it starts even earlier if you go by the appearance of leaves, buds and flowers.