It is a new year and time for days getting longer. On January 1st, the sun was overhead for 10 hours 14 minutes and 9 seconds, which is 28 seconds longer than the the last day of 2020.
The shorter nights have occurred since the winter solstice, when sunset occurred 2 minutes, 48 seconds longer on Dec 21, 2020.
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By March 1, it will be possible to picnic or have dinner outside before the sun dips below the horizon at 6:25 pm.
The sun is south of the equator during our winter sending longer amounts of daylight to the southern hemisphere.
For example, South Africa has daylight while northern Europe directly north remains in darkness.
You can see by the geochron map how daylight on earth covers less of the Northern Hemisphere because of the tilt of the Earth’s axis in relation to its orbit around the Sun.
The lopsided lighting will change as the sun’s position moves north in April, May, and most of June. The sun will also spread out over more of the Northern Hemisphere, meaning our nights will continue to get shorter through June 20; culminating 3 hours, 52 minutes shorter by the summer solstice (Jun 20, 2020).
