Because the reasons for the varying lengths of day are well known It’s more an exercise in figuring out why the map has such slanting in it.
You’re just like almost there, that graph isn’t about lengths of days. It’s an arbitrary representation of what someone would consider a “normal” time for the sun to set and rise. The gradient in colors is because of the shape of the earth, the blocky lines are probably the cut off counties/states that follow different timezones (would need to verify source for that though). I’ve gotta split but hopefully someone can explain it better in the mean time if you have more questions.
Thank you. You did a great job explaining it.
The gradients change based on time zones. You’ll see how they line up.
Walking over a time zone line changes time one hour, but the sunset time doesn’t magically change an hour.
Like say you are standing between Georgia and Alabama. If you walk into Georgia the sun will set at around 5:30pm EST. If you walk into Alabama the sun will set at around 4:30pm CST.
The sun is setting one hour earlier in Alabama but you are basically watching the exact same sunset.
As you go further west into Alabama the time zone change “makes more sense” because the time zone being exactly between Alabama and Georgia doesn’t make sense other than them being separate states.
Geez. that timezone separation is more fucked than I realized lol. I’ve lived in different time zones but always near the center of it and I didn’t know there was such awful cut offs that zigzag through states like that. Sucks that user stayed hostile though, not sure if they just want to argue about everything timezone related or just too embarrassed to gracefully exit.