Plague Diary: In Which I Have No Cardinal Direction

[lydy]

I just want to say that the sheer number of people who have helpfully informed me that if I wish to see Lake Erie all I need to do is drive north is adorable.  The idea that I, Lydia Nickerson, could somehow use that as information that would help me choose a direction in which to point my vehicle points to a touching faith in my ability to, I dunno, read a map, maybe?  I have literally no idea what direction North is from here.  I have a vague feeling that Minneapolis is West of here and NYC is East of here, but I honestly would not want to bet money on it.

Comments

[quadong]

It's winter (I mean, it's within a month of the solstice). North is the direction when the Sun is behind you. Ok, not super helpful for precision work. I bet this is briefly useful each year nearer the arctic circle, though.

[lydy]

Ok, my extremely limited understanding of cardinal directions is that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. And now you're telling me that isn't true? I despair.

[quadong]

Alas, it's a lie to children!

It only rises exactly in the east and sets exactly in the west on the equinoxes. For you today, it rises approximately southeast by east, except that in a city, you probably can't see it until it is 10 degrees above the horizon, by which point it is (today) southeast of you.

In Mpls, being a bit norther than Cleveland, the Sun is even somewhat more south than that, but only a few degrees, so the compass points are the same.

In Anchorage, today the Sun rises southeast by south. By the time the Sun is 5 degrees over the horizon, it's south by east, and it only ever gets 6 degrees up.

I like the names of compass points. :-) I don't have them memorized though, but have to look up the list on Wikipedia.