What happens at the June solstice
Earth’s axis is tilted about 23.4 degrees. In June, the North Pole leans most toward the Sun. As a result, the Sun’s noon position climbs to its highest point of the year for anyone north of the Tropic of Cancer, and sinks to its lowest for anyone south of the Tropic of Capricorn.
At the moment of the solstice, the Sun is directly overhead at noon along the Tropic of Cancer, at about 23.4 degrees north. That line runs through Mexico, the Sahara, Saudi Arabia, India and southern China. North of it, the Sun is never directly overhead.
The word solstice comes from Latin for “sun stands still”. For several days around the solstice, the Sun’s noon height barely changes, as if its northward drift has paused before turning back.
When it happens
The June solstice falls on June 20, 21 or 22, depending on the year and your time zone. In Coordinated Universal Time it is usually June 20 or 21. Like the equinoxes, it is a single instant that happens at the same moment worldwide, so the local date depends on where you are. Exact times are listed on the seasons page.
Longest day in the north, shortest in the south
The amount of extra daylight grows with latitude:
| Approximate latitude | Daylight at the June solstice |
|---|---|
| Equator (0°) | About 12 hours 7 minutes |
| 30° N (Cairo, New Orleans) | About 14 hours |
| 40° N (Madrid, New York) | About 15 hours |
| 50° N (Prague, Vancouver area) | About 16 hours 20 minutes |
| 60° N (Oslo, Helsinki) | About 18 hours 50 minutes |
| 40° S (northern Patagonia, Tasmania area) | About 9 hours 20 minutes |
Values are rounded and include the usual effects of refraction and the Sun’s disk. For your own location, check the sunrise and sunset times.
In the Southern Hemisphere the same day is the shortest of the year, and it marks the start of astronomical winter. In places such as Australia, Argentina and South Africa, it is the winter solstice.
Midnight sun and polar night
North of the Arctic Circle, at about 66.6 degrees north, the Sun does not set at all around the June solstice. Northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland’s offshore island of Grímsey, Alaska and much of the Russian and Canadian Arctic all see the midnight sun. The farther north you go, the longer the period without sunset lasts, up to about six months at the North Pole.
South of the Antarctic Circle, the reverse happens: the Sun does not rise at all, and Antarctica is in polar night.
Earliest sunrise and latest sunset
Many people expect the earliest sunrise and the latest sunset to fall on the solstice itself. At most mid-latitudes they do not. Because Earth’s orbit is elliptical and its axis is tilted, the time of solar noon shifts by a few seconds each day around this time of year. The result is that the earliest sunrise comes several days before the solstice and the latest sunset several days after it.
The solstice is still the day with the greatest total daylight in the north. The effect is the mirror of what happens around the December solstice, where the earliest sunset comes in early December.
After the solstice
From the solstice onward, the days in the Northern Hemisphere begin to shorten, slowly at first and then faster toward the September equinox. In the south, days start lengthening again.
Weather services do not wait for the solstice: in meteorological terms, northern summer already began on June 1. The guide to meteorological vs astronomical seasons explains why both systems exist.