Guide

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How daylight speeds up after the winter solstice

January to March

After the winter solstice, daylight barely grows at first, only about a minute in the whole first week. It reaches about a minute a day in early January and speeds up to about 3 minutes a day from late February through March. In January most of that new light lands in the evening: sunset gets about 35 minutes later over the month, while sunrise gets only about 15 minutes earlier.

Why this time of year

Sunrise keeps getting later until the first days of January (about 7:15 a.m. standard time, January 1 to 5), and sunsets have been getting later since about December 11. So all January the evenings brighten faster than the mornings. By February and March the whole day is growing quickly.

How to notice it

  1. Pick one moment you can see every evening, like the time the far side of the yard turns too dim to see colors, and write down the clock time once a week from early January to late March. When the clocks spring forward in March, subtract an hour from your later times so the weeks still compare.
  2. Look up that day's sunrise and sunset times in a sunrise table and subtract one from the other to get the day length. In early January it grows by about 8 minutes a week. By late March it grows by about 20 minutes a week.
  3. Compare your two ends of the day. In January sunset gets later by about 35 minutes over the month, while sunrise gets earlier by only about 15 minutes, so you notice the change at dinnertime first.
  4. Watch the dusk sky and the yard, not the sun itself.

Try this with kids: Each week at dusk, check whether you can still see the color of your boots outside at the same clock time, and keep a tally of how many weeks it takes before it is still light at dinner.

Word to know: The “equinox” is the March date when day and night are close to equal and daylight is growing fastest.

Sources

  • aa.usno.navy.milUSNO daily series 2025-12-01 to 2026-03-31 at 42.4 N 71.3 W, standard time, day length = sunset minus sunrise (sourcing agent computed): Jan 1 rise 07:15 set 16:23 (9h08); Jan 8 9h16; Jan 31 rise 07:00 set 16:58 (9h58); Feb 1 10h00 to Mar 1 11h15; Mar 31 12h41; Mar 17-24 +21 min; latest sunrise 07:15 Jan 1-5; earliest sunset 16:12 Dec 6-11.
  • aa.usno.navy.milUSNO Mar 20 2026: rise 05:48, set 17:58 standard time, 12h10.
  • earthsky.orgEarthSky (Ottewell, 40 N): after the winter solstice sunrises came earlier, at first slowly and then faster, fastest around the March equinox.
  • earthsky.orgEarthSky: earliest sunset early December, shortest day at the solstice, latest sunrise early January.

Checked against these sources on November 3, 2026.

In the guide for January, February, March

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