SEATTLE — The days are getting longer, and Seattle is about to experience its first 8 p.m. sunset since August.
The sun will set at 8 p.m. on the dot Monday, according to timeanddate.com. Our last sunset after 8 p.m. was on Aug. 26, 2023.
March and April are the months when western Washington gains the most daylight. On April 15, western Washington will gain three minutes and 18 seconds of daylight. The region will continue to gain at least three minutes daily until May 2.
Western Washington gains the most amount of daylight near the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and it slows down as we near the summer and winter solstices.
That’s based on the sun’s path in the sky, the shape of which is calculated through a combination of trigonometric functions, according to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Near the spring equinox, which was March 19, the angle of the sun’s path appears to be steeper, experiencing change more quickly. That leads to faster change in the amount of daylight we see.
The longest day of the year, the summer solstice, is June 20 when the sun will rise at 5:11 a.m. and the sun will set at 9:10 p.m., giving us nearly 16 hours of daylight. However, that isn't Seattle's latest sunset of the year. Sunset times will creep up another minute from June 21-28, making 9:11 p.m. the latest time the sun goes down all year in Seattle.
On the flip side, the sunrise on April 15 is 6:19 a.m. At that point, western Washington is less than two weeks away from sunrises before 6 a.m. The first of the year is April 26.