Polar night underway in Norway

Longyearbyen, Norway in the Svalbard Islands



Here in DC day lengths are getting much shorter (the length of time the sun is up) and nights are getting longer. Just over 6 weeks ago on Sept 23 the fall equinox, days and nights were equal everywhere on the globe, both 12 hours. But now, as you can see on the link below, we have 10 hours days and 14 hour nights in DC, and days will reach their shortest on the winter solstice, Dec 22, when there will 9.5 hour days and 14.5 hour nights here in DC.
http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/usa/washington-dc

If you think that's short, check out this site for Longyearbyen, Norway the world's most northerly town way up in the Svalbard Islands at latitude 78 N, 12 degrees from the North Pole:
http://www.timeanddate.com/sun/norway/longyearbyen

The current day length in Longyearbyen is zero and nights are 24 hours, known as polar night. The sun stopped coming up back on October 27, and they won't be seeing it again until Feb 16 next year. Even then, their first days will only be 1 hour long.

Having said that, even when the sun doesn't come up in Longyearbyen they do get a few (not many) hours a day of blue glow coming from the sun from under the horizon, called the blue hours, in which at least for those few hours they can see things without lights.


Polar night snowmobile trip

The Svalbard Islands actually do have tourism for people who want to experience 24 hour darkness of polar night. Snowmobile safaris and dog-sledding are two of the big activities, both looking out for wildlife like polar bears. On the Svalbard Islands there are more polar bears than people.