Summer Solstice 2026

What to Know About the Summer Solstice, the Longest Day of the Year

The summer solstice arrives early Sunday, June 21st (Open story in app to access prepared simulation), when the Sun reaches its farthest point north of the equator and marks the official start of the season in the Northern Hemisphere. At 4:25 a.m. EDT (1:25 a.m. PDT), it will stand directly over the Tropic of Cancer, capping a six-month climb in the midday Sun’s height.

At the moment of the solstice, the Sun will appear directly overhead from a point roughly 375 miles (600 km) south-southwest of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.

As noted previously, a clenched fist held at arm’s length spans about 10 degrees, and the Sun’s noon altitude is now 47 degrees higher than it was six months ago.

In other words, the midday Sun now appears nearly five clenched-fist widths higher in the southern sky than it did on Dec. 21.

Sun briefly comes to a halt

The word “solstice” comes from the Latin for “Sun standing still,” a reference to the brief pause in the Sun’s apparent northward motion before it begins drifting south again. After Sunday’s turning point, that gradual shift will continue until the autumnal equinox on Sep. 22.

From temperate latitudes, the Sun never appears directly overhead. In New York City, for example, it will reach its highest point of the year at 12:57 p.m. EDT on Friday, standing 73 degrees above the southern horizon. Because the Sun traces such a high arc across the sky, daylight now lasts 15 hours and 4 minutes.

The solstice also comes with a common misconception: it does not bring both the year’s earliest sunrise and latest sunset. This year, the earliest sunrise came on June 14, while the latest sunset will not arrive until June 27.

Over the course of a year, different parts of Earth receive varying amounts of sunlight, changing both the angle of the Sun’s path across the sky and the number of hours it remains above the horizon. If insolation—the total energy received from the Sun—alone determined temperature, we would now be experiencing the hottest weather of the year.

That is why the hottest days of summer still lie ahead. In temperate regions, the atmosphere continues to absorb more heat than it releases for weeks after the solstice, creating the seasonal temperature lag that typically pushes peak heat into late July.

Sun now farthest away

Another seasonal paradox arrives on July 6 at 1:30 p.m. EDT, when Earth reaches aphelion, its farthest point from the Sun, at 94,502,962 miles. Many people assume Earth is closest to the Sun at this time of year, but the opposite is true: perihelion, the closest point, occurred on Jan. 3. The difference between those two extremes is 3,099,325 miles, or 3.28 percent, which changes the amount of radiant heat Earth receives by nearly 7 percent.

For the Northern Hemisphere, that difference tends to warm winters and cool summers. But the large land masses in the Northern Hemisphere work in the opposite direction, generally making winters colder and summers hotter than in the Southern Hemisphere.