The sun and the clock in Philadelphia (2026)
Philadelphia lies at 75.2°W. Its time zone, UTC−5, is built around the 75°W meridian. The two very nearly coincide: solar noon — the moment the sun is highest — falls at about 12:01, which is as close to true solar time as a zone this wide can get. Under daylight saving the clocks move 60 minutes forward, widening the gap to 61 minutes and pushing solar noon to 13:01.
The longest day of 2026 is 22 June, with 15h 1m of daylight. The shortest is 22 December, with 9h 20m. The swing between them is 5h 41m. This is the latitude band where the difference between summer and winter evenings is most obvious.
The earliest sunrise and the latest sunset do not land on the longest day. In Philadelphia the sun comes up earliest on 15 June at 05:31, while the latest sunset waits until 29 June at 20:33. The equation of time is what separates them: the Earth's elliptical orbit and axial tilt move solar noon back and forth by several minutes over the year.
The sky stays usably light for a while after the sun goes down. In Philadelphia that civil twilight runs about 27 minutes at the equinox, stretching to 33 minutes at the solstice.
Every figure in this section is computed from the city's own latitude, longitude and IANA time zone using NOAA solar algorithms (Spencer, 1971), accurate to about ±2 arcminutes below 65° latitude.
