The sun and the clock in Tampa (2026)
Tampa lies at 82.5°W. Its time zone, UTC−5, is built around the 75°W meridian. The 7.5° gap between them means the clock runs roughly 30 minutes ahead of the sun: solar noon arrives at about 12:30 rather than 12:00. Under daylight saving the clocks move 60 minutes forward, widening the gap to 90 minutes and pushing solar noon to 13:30.
The longest day of 2026 is 22 June, with 13h 55m of daylight. The shortest is 22 December, with 10h 22m. The swing between them is 3h 33m. At this latitude the seasons are visible in the clock, but never dramatic.
The earliest sunrise and the latest sunset do not land on the longest day. In Tampa the sun comes up earliest on 11 June at 06:33, while the latest sunset waits until 3 July at 20:30. 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 Tampa that civil twilight runs about 23 minutes at the equinox.
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.
