Polar night has begun in the northernmost U.S. city of Utqiagvik, Alaska, which now faces 65 days of darkness. Utqiagvik, formerly named Barrow, saw only 64 minutes of sunlight on Sunday, and following sunset at 1.44pm, local time will not see the sun again until January 23, 2019, at 1.04pm.
The city of about 4,000 residents is 320 miles above the Arctic Circle, north of which all latitudes experience some length of the polar night. Some residents of the city gathered to 'celebrate' the final sunset of 2018 by watching 30 Days Of Night, the 2007 film that depicts Barrow, as it was then known, being overrun by vampires during the polar night. Residents said that cloudy conditions prevented them from seeing a true sunset when the sun went down, but that didn't dampen their spirit for marking the occasion.
'Celebrating the beginning of Polar Night at 1:44pm (sunset) with good friends, great food, and lots of laughs at a Hollywood film where, on Polar Night, vampires take over our little town,' resident Kirsten Alburg wrote on Instagram.' We haven't seen the sun in 4 days, and another cloudy day today kept us from waving goodbye, but this fun snow mound photo-op proved that its spirit is still with us! Here's to another dark and wonderful winter at the top,' she said in a caption to a group photo. The polar night begins at the North Pole on the Autumnal Equinox and spreads south to the Arctic Circle until the Winter Solstice when it begins to retreat back north. Temperatures in Utqiagvik plunge during the polar night, dropping to average highs of -5 to -10 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter months. Overnight temperatures can drop to -10 to -20 degrees in winter. Despite the fact that it experiences polar night, Utqiagvik won't be in complete darkness. Civil twilight will provide enough illumination to see objects outside for between three to six hours a day in the city. During civil twilight, the sun is within six degrees below the horizon.