Letter to the editor: earliest sunset December 7

Today (December 7) happens to be the earliest sunset of the year in Indianapolis.

A common thread of objection to statewide central time for Indiana is that winter sunsets would be "too early".

After so many years effectively in the wrong time zone from October through April, I suspect that many of us in Indiana have become less aware of the typical winter sunset time at our latitude. The only way to get significantly more evening sunlight is to take it away from those who prefer the benefits of that scarce hour of sunlight in the winter mornings, e.g., for melting snow and ice off vehicles and roads, and burning off any morning fog.

I have shown Fort Wayne, South Bend, Indianapolis, and Terre Haute in the following table twice, to help compare their earliest sunset time with that of several other cities. I concluded that our sunset time is much more in line with comparable areas of the rest of the country on central time than it would be if we remained on eastern.

Before there were standard time zones, the local sunset time on December 7 for Indianapolis (and all points due east and west) was 4:35pm. Determining this median sunset time for our latitude really helped to open my eyes and calibrate me on what sunset time to reasonably expect in Indiana this time of year. Perhaps others will find it as helpful as I did.

With our one-hour-wide time zones, locations in the eastern half of the nearest time zone (like Chicago, Indianapolis, and New York) should experience their earliest sunset from 4:05 to 4:35pm. Conversely, sunset time in the western half of each time zone should range from 4:35 to 5:05pm. The following table confirms that this is exactly how it works out in various cities across the country, and confirms that central time provides a more equitable distribution of our scarce winter sunlight than eastern time would.

SUNSET ON DECEMBER 7
4:05pm, eastern boundary of each time zone
4:12pm, Boston MA
4:12pm, Fort Wayne (central time)
4:14pm, South Bend (central time)
4:20pm, Chicago IL
4:20pm, Indianapolis (central time)
4:26pm, Terre Haute (central time)
4:28pm, New York NY
4:31pm, Evansville IN (central time)
4:35pm, Denver CO
4:35pm, Philadelphia PA
4:35pm, Reno NV
4:40pm, St. Louis MO
4:45pm, Sacramento CA
4:46pm, Washington DC
4:54pm, Youngstown OH
5:05pm, western boundary of each time zone

5:12pm, Fort Wayne (eastern time)
5:14pm, South Bend (eastern time)
5:20pm, Indianapolis (eastern time)
5:26pm, Terre Haute (eastern time)