Take a deep breath. Maybe make yourself a cup of tea and have a sit down, cause we’ve got some bad news that you already know but likely don’t want to hear: the days are officially getting shorter and shorter.
You might love winter, with its fairy lights and cosy evenings and wooly jumpers, but there’s pretty much no one who likes it when it gets dark at 4pm. That’s why it’s better to be prepared, so that the elongated nights don’t take you by surprise.
So when exactly will we lose daylight hours past 7pm? Well that depends on where you are.
The exact time of sunset varies a bit throughout the UK. For example this Saturday (September 13) sunset will be at 7.20pm in London, but over in Belfast they’ll get an extra 25 minutes of daylight with the sun setting at 7.45pm. The south-east will see the nights creeping in sooner, with nearly two weeks between the first pre-7pm sunset in the nation’s easternmost and westernmost places.
In short: the sun will begin to set before 7pm at a later date for those on the west coast.
The last day the sun will go down after 7pm in every UK region
- Lowestoft, furthest east point in the UK: September 18
- The south-east and south midlands: September 20
- The north-east, north-west, west-midlands, north-east Scotland, north Wales: September 24
- The south-west, south Wales, rest of Scotland: September 26
- Devon, Cornwall, and most of Northern Ireland: September 20
- Enniskillen, furthest west point in the UK: October 3
By October 5, we’ll all be fully in the grips of autumn. It won’t be until April that we start to see light back in the sky in the evenings, so make the most of it for the next couple of weeks.
When is the shortest day of the year?
The winter solstice is commonly referred to as the shortest day of the year, and, astrologically speaking, the first official day of winter. Nights keep getting longer until the solstice, when they’ll begin to get longer again in preparation for spring. On the solstice, the day is less than 8 hours long.
This year the solstice will be on December 21, so our days will begin lengthening again on December 23.
Plus: When does autumn officially start in the UK?
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