As we reset our clocks to Pacific Standard Time, I was reminded how early nightfall would be arriving in the dead of winter — well before 5 p.m., even at our southerly latitude (south of 33 degrees). This didn’t seem right, and I suspected we were being shortchanged by our position in the time zone. So I looked it up.

As it turns out, San Diego is east of most of the Pacific time zone: east of the entire states of Washington and Oregon, and of 80% of California and Nevada. This means that we witness sunrise and sunset about a half hour earlier than if we were at the same longitude as Seattle.

This also means that our Local Apparent Noon — the time when the sun is highest overhead — occurs before noon by our official clocks. But not by much.

Daylight Savings Time moves Local Apparent Noon an hour later by the official clock, well past noon. So it doesn’t correct the situation, and is not an argument for exending Daylight Savings, much less making it permanent.

So we don’t have it too bad: on the shortest day of the year, we get ten full hours of daylight — less than Miami, but not much. On the longest day, we get fourteen and a half hours — less than Seattle, but then maybe Seattle needs it more than we do.

And other parts of the country are in a worse position than San Diego in their own time zones — such as Maine, Eastern Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle. So you won’t find me whining about ours.

The preliminary Army Corps of Engineers report on the New Orleans flood control failures against Katrina is out. The Washington Post reported an excellent summary. Katrina spawned many myths along with her destruction. Among them:
1. Katrina was a category 5 storm. True, but not when she hit New Orleans, where she was Cat 3.
2. The levees failed due to inadequate or unfunded upgrades. False. What failed were the floodwalls, which were upgraded to withstand Cat 3 hurricanes. The floodwalls failed for other reasons, mainly due to a separate project, the Mississippi River Shipping Channel, constructed to facilitate shipping into New Orleans. It seems that the construction of this channel may have magnified the strength of the storm surge, undermining the flood control project. Also, the pilings used to strengthen the floodwalls may have been too shallow.

Recall: when President Bush said that no one knew that the levees would fail, he was widely ridiculed. Now, I ask, in light of this report: who knew that the levees (floodwalls) would fail?