Bill Karins, Meteorologist

I love and hate this time of year. The first fall cold fronts are plowing their way through the hot humid air of summer across the northern half of the country. Every few days after the front passes you get a taste of ideal autumnal glory. Characterized by clear, deep blue skies that feature warm days and clear crisp nights. You can almost see the leaves changing before your eyes. My only issue with this Norman Rockwell-esque picture is that I have less time to enjoy it every day. My 6:15am walk with my black lab used to be filled with glorious rays from a nice summer sunrise. Now my shadow has disappeared along with those glorious rays. The darkness of winter is slowly taking away my summer sunshine.

I find it almost cruel that the longest day each year is the first day of summer. After June 21st the amount of daylight continues to shrink. At first it is barely noticeable, maybe a minute of daylight taken away each day in June and July, but when September and October arrive my sunshine is stolen at an alarming rate. Sunrise in NYC Sept 1 is 6:20am; sunrise in NYC on Oct 31 is 7:23 am. The times may differ but the story is the same whether you live in Seattle or Miami, the long summer days are over.

The tilt of the earth on its axis does make the length of days more extreme in the northern half of the country. The winter days in Minneapolis feature only 8 hours and 45 minutes of sunlight but the longest summer day has 15 hours and 37 minutes of sunlight. This amounts to a 6 hours difference between the longest and shortest days of the year. San Diego on the other hand changes a little over 4 hours.

Here is a great example of the different extreme sunset positions on the longest and shortest days of the year.

Source: WRC-TV

The sunsets have been superimposed onto one image showing the extremes in Washington D.C. This is from our NBC Weather Plus station WRC. The sun on the right is at the Winter Solstice and the sun on the left is from the Summer Solstice. As you can see, the sunshine is being stolen. Enjoy your fall!