[hamza (OP)]

I'd appreciate if someone would describe what days and nights are like in Norway. How long is a usual day and the night. Is it dark/night continuously throughout the day or just a bit longer than usual. Is there a difference between winter and summer days and if so how long are the winters and summers anyway.
 

[CliffordK]

I can't give any specifics for Norway, but if you live near the equator, then your day/night will be approximately 12 hours year around. 

The further north one is, then one gets longer days during the summer and shorter days during the winter. 

A portion of Norway extends above the Arctic circle which would have 24 hour darkness during part of the winter, and 24 hour daylight during part of the summer.  The days would hit about 12 hours on the spring and fall equinoxes.

Northern Lights or the Aurora Borealis is often visible during the winter in these northerly locations.

Here is a good day length calculator that I found. 
http://www.solartopo.com/daylength-course-of-the-year.htm

I found it easier to select Norge in Europe, then select locations using the map.

[David Cooper]

I live almost as far north as the southern tip of Norway. In the middle of summer the night only lasts about three hours and the sky to the north never goes dark. In the middle of winter the sun only just comes up and there are maybe about four hours of daylight. If you go up to the Arctic circle you reach the point where the sun doesn't come up at all in the middle of winter and where it doesn't set at all in the middle of summer. Because the atmosphere carries light round the planet beyond the point reached by direct sunlight, it's daylight on a fair bit more than half the planet at any one time, so if you're just inside the Arctic circle and it's the middle of winter, there will be an hour or two of daylight in the middle of the day, but with the sun staying below the horizon.

[hamza (OP)]

I live almost as far north as the southern tip of Norway. In the middle of summer the night only lasts about three hours and the sky to the north never goes dark. In the middle of winter the sun only just comes up and there are maybe about four hours of daylight. If you go up to the Arctic circle you reach the point where the sun doesn't come up at all in the middle of winter and where it doesn't set at all in the middle of summer. Because the atmosphere carries light round the planet beyond the point reached by direct sunlight, it's daylight on a fair bit more than half the planet at any one time, so if you're just inside the Arctic circle and it's the middle of winter, there will be an hour or two of daylight in the middle of the day, but with the sun staying below the horizon.

Thanks CliffordK and David for the response and the useful link. David, that is very interesting to hear what you said. For someone living around your area, Id be intrigued to know how the daily lives are affected by that sort of day. How does it affect the sleeping and waking up pattern. Moreover what are the average working hours like. Especially in the winters with no daylight at all? how does one go about living the sort of lives we are accustomed to living here around the equator. It is fascinating how different that sort of environment is from mine and how easily we mistake our environments for normal when things can be totally different on another part of the world.
Have you been living there all your life ? or did you move from the equator, and if so how did it affect your daily habits?
Would appreciate your response.

[David Cooper]

David, that is very interesting to hear what you said. For someone living around your area, Id be intrigued to know how the daily lives are affected by that sort of day. How does it affect the sleeping and waking up pattern. Moreover what are the average working hours like.

People work normal hours like anywhere else, but in winter that means everyone travels to and from work/school in the dark, stupidly wasting the few hours of daylight that are on offer (unless they can get outside during a break). As you can imagine, it's a pretty depressing time of year, which is no doubt why there has always had to be a big festival at around midwinter to give everyone something to look forward to, after which the days lengthen again.

Especially in the winters with no daylight at all?

You have to be two thirds of the way up Norway and just into the Arctic circle before it gets nearly that bad, and even then it's only for a short part of the year with the sky still going light at midday. Up at the top of Norway it's worse with no brightening of the sky at all. There are islands further north still, shared between Norway and Russia, where there are three months during which the sun never comes above the horizon (according to that page Clifford linked to), but a lesser chunk of that will be continually dark. Maybe as much as two months, but that's a guess.

In summer, there's more daytime than anyone can use, so it feels wasteful. At the height of summer here (not quite Norway, don't forget) the sky is light by three in the morning, the sun pours in through the windows somewhere between half past three and four, and then it stays light all the way through to eleven in the evening (with the sun setting at some time after ten, though it stays light for a lot longer still because the sun goes down at such a shallow angle, so night's restricted to under four hours, and because the sun's not far down below the northern horizon, the sky's never really dark enough for astronomy. In the northern third of Norway the sun won't dip below the horizon at all, but it will graze it to the north and travel higher in the sky when to the south.

...how does one go about living the sort of lives we are accustomed to living here around the equator. It is fascinating how different that sort of environment is from mine and how easily we mistake our environments for normal when things can be totally different on another part of the world.

You would just have to adapt to it and make the best of it if you came here. A lot of the winter here is a write-off, particularly when it just goes on raining all the time and short days can be made even shorter by thick cloud - some days it's so bad that there are only really a couple of hours of gloom instead of daylight, but the long bright evenings of summer make up for it to some degree.

Have you been living there all your life ? or did you move from the equator, and if so how did it affect your daily habits?
Would appreciate your response.

I've never lived anywhere else, but I burn easily in the sun and can't even take the heat of England, so I've no plans to move.

[hamza (OP)]

In summer, there's more daytime than anyone can use, so it feels wasteful. At the height of summer here (not quite Norway, don't forget) the sky is light by three in the morning, the sun pours in through the windows somewhere between half past three and four, and then it stays light all the way through to eleven in the evening (with the sun setting at some time after ten, though it stays light for a lot longer still because the sun goes down at such a shallow angle, so night's restricted to under four hours, and because the sun's not far down below the northern horizon, the sky's never really dark enough for astronomy. In the northern third of Norway the sun won't dip below the horizon at all, but it will graze it to the north and travel higher in the sky when to the south.

Thanks alot David for the elaboration. Very interesting indeed. So does it mean that people are used to sleeping at "night" even when there is sunlight outside at 10 in the evening. How does all this affect the sleeping pattern. I'd be interested in some comparison, viewing the differences between sleeping hours of Norwegians and people from around the equator.

[David Cooper]

Because people in Norway work the same hours as elsewhere, it's still normal for people to sleep the same hours as people much further south. Some people may need to use thick curtains to keep the light out, but I just leave mine open as I can sleep in daylight without difficulty. The exception to that is if I go to bed so late that the sun's already back up - I find it hard to get to sleep if the sun's shining directly on my eyelids, but once asleep it won't wake me up.

If you're looking for major lifestyle differences, you'd be better off looking at another culture further west. For much of the year in Greenland it's possible for people to detatch from the normal 24-hour cycle and to end up sleeping at radically different times of day from each other. Some children will be up all "night" playing outside and their parents aren't worried about this as it's the way things have always been there. They sleep when they feel the need to and don't care what the clock says. I imagine that school has now interrupted this to some degree by making it harder for this to happen outside of the holidays, but it's something that visitors to Greenland comment on when they return.