The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Sunsets are getting later

In the Northern hemisphere, yesterday's was the earliest sunset of the year. Kieron Taylor, writing for the Sheffield Astronomical Society in the U.K., has a pretty good explanation of why this is so. Suffice to say, it's because the earth's orbit around the sun is elliptical.

Here, then, is a quick chart of the shortest days of the year, for Evanston, Illinois:

Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight
4 Dec Earliest sunsets start 07:02 16:19 9:16
13 Dec Sunsets get later 07:10 16:20 9:09
21 Dec Solstice, 18:35 UTC 07:16 16:22 9:06
30 Dec Latest sunrises start 07:19 16:28 9:09
8 Jan Sunrises get earlier 07:18 16:37 9:18
28 Jan 5pm sunset 07:07 17:00 9:53
4 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:09 10:09

You can get sunrise information for your location at wx-now.com.

Comments are closed