On the downhill slide

Despite the fact that the highs are still going to be in the 70s for the next couple days (and I'm not complaining!) there are plenty of other signs that fall is really here.  Trees are starting to lose their leaves, and the daylight hours are decreasing.

I found this neat little animation (you can click through the picture) from the astronomy department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln that shows you the number of daylight hours for a given latitude and date.  At 43.5 degrees, on Oct 11, Madison will get a 11 hours of daylight per day.  Fast forward to Christmas time and it's a mere 8.6.

It was also interesting to play around with the latitude to see how much more and less daylight we get in Madison (43.5 degrees) than in Orlando where I grew up (28.5 degrees).

Science/nature geeks, enjoy!