Canadians robbed of sunlight during fall

Canadians feeling blue during the last three months shouldn't be surprised -- they were robbed of more than 100 hours of sunlight, climatologists said.

From September to November, Ontario recorded its gloomiest fall in 29 years, with 343 hours of sunlight instead of the normal 475 hours, Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said Friday.

"We were robbed of about 130 hours of sunshine we would normally get in that period, so I can understand why people who suffer seasonal disorders would have been depressed," Environment Canada's senior climatologist Dave Phillips said.

This fall was the third dreariest since Toronto began recording the amount of sunshine in 1957. Rainy weather during the three-month period was the main culprit, Phillips said.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International