Via Paul Huttner’s mention on Updraft.
The later sunsets and long evening twilight provide valuable extra time for outdoor evening activities this time of year. They also occur a week after the summer solstice due to a quirk in earth’s orbit. Because earth’s orbit is an ellipse instead of a circle, small differences in sunrise and sunset times occur near the solstice. That reuslts in the latest sunsets of the year coming just after the summer solstice. A similar quirk effects sunrise and sunset times near the winter solstice.
So let’s do some comparisons.
Here in the Twin Cities, tonight, the sun will set at 9:04 pm. (Oh, by comparison, on December 13th, the sun will set here at 4:30 pm!)
Other Cities:
New York, my home, has a sunset time tonight of 8:31 pm.
Anaheim, CA, where I used to live, has a sunset time of 8:06 pm.
London, UK has a sunset time of 9:21 pm.
Wherever you live, enjoy your extra sunlight!