Quote:
Originally Posted by powderjunkie
Longitudinally we belong in PST (UTC -8 = 112.5 W to 127.5W); Calgary = 114 deg W (Edmonton is 113.5W).
So permanent DST would simply put us where we "should" be.
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No, you have that backwards.
Permanent DST would make us the same as Central Standard Time year-round, which is 2 hours ahead of where we should be. Even on Mountain Standard Time, we're already an hour ahead of our natural time zone.
In reality, in Calgary (and Edmonton, Red Deer, and Lethbridge), we're so close to the "natural" dividing line (which is slightly west of Bassano), that we're a half hour out of sync with solar noon whether we're in Pacific or Mountain time. During MST, our solar noon is about 12:30pm. If we were in PST, it would be about 11:30am. During daylight time, our solar noon is about 1:30pm. If you were perfectly centred in the time zone, solar noon would happen at exactly 12:00pm (with some slight variation from day to day because the Earth's orbit isn't precise).
This is a good map that shows where the natural time zones should be:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Zones_Map.png
The northern BC-Alberta border is 120 degrees west, which is the natural centre point of the Pacific Time Zone. For Grande Prairie, which is just east of the border, they're perfectly located for the Pacific Time Zone, so permanent DST would put them 2 hours out of sync... plus, they're so far north that they barely get 7 hours of sunlight in December, meaning their sunrise around Christmas wouldn't be until about 10:30am on permanent DST.