Solstice and Equinox Times in Your Time Zone

The winter solstice of 2026 is on Monday, December 21, at 20:50 UTC: 3:50 PM in New York and 12:50 PM in Los Angeles, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Each solstice and equinox is one instant, the same for everyone on Earth. This page gives that instant in your own time zone for every one from 2026 to 2035, with that day’s sunrise, sunset and daylight where you are. It also covers the places people travel to watch it: Stonehenge, Newgrange and Chichén Itzá.

How to use it

Type your town, or tap “Use my location”. The answer starts with the next solstice or equinox: the date and the minute where you are, the same minute in UTC, and how much daylight you get that day. Pick another moment or another year to see that one. Under the answer, the table gives all four moments of the year side by side, with the daylight for each. Under the table you’ll find the length of each season, the day when day and night are closest to equal, and the places people gather for it. The names follow your hemisphere: south of the equator, June brings the winter solstice and December the summer one. The link keeps your town, the moment and the year. If you used your own location, that location never goes into the link.

Where the numbers come from

The moments are the U.S. Naval Observatory’s own. Its Astronomical Applications Department publishes “Earth’s Seasons”: the equinoxes, the solstices, and the dates Earth is closest to and farthest from the Sun, in UTC to the minute. The page reads them from the Observatory and never types a date by hand. As a check, we recomputed all 40 moments from 2026 to 2035 with Jean Meeus’s method from Astronomical Algorithms, and every one lands within two minutes of the Observatory’s. The page always shows the Observatory’s minute. Your local time is that minute in your time zone, daylight saving included. Sunrise, sunset and daylight are computed for your town the way the Naval Observatory defines them: the top of the Sun’s disk on a flat horizon, with the air’s bending of the light. They are the same numbers our Where Is the Sun Right Now? tool gives.

Why the date moves

A year is not a whole number of days, so each moment lands about six hours later each year. A leap day then pulls it back. That is why the winter solstice is usually given as December 21 but falls on December 22 in UTC in 2027. Your time zone moves the date too. The September equinox of 2026 is on September 23 in UTC, but in New York it is Tuesday, September 22, at 8:05 PM. The page notes it whenever your date differs from the UTC one. The same goes for the “first day of spring”: in New York it begins on Saturday, March 20, 2027, at 4:25 PM.

Where people gather to watch

• Stonehenge, England. English Heritage: “On the summer solstice, the sun rises behind the Heel Stone in the north-east part of the horizon and its first rays shine into the heart of Stonehenge.” In June 2026 it opened the stones for free access over the solstice night. Solstice parking was booked ahead and sold out, so people without a ticket went by bus from Salisbury. In December 2025 it welcomed “around 8,500 people” for the winter sunrise. The page gives the sunrise and sunset time at the stones for the year you pick. English Heritage announces each solstice’s opening on its solstice page.
• Newgrange, Ireland. Around the winter solstice the rising Sun shines through the roof box above the entrance and into the passage tomb’s chamber. The Office of Public Works opens the Brú na Bóinne visitor centre earlier on the winter-solstice mornings, 19 to 23 December, and suspends the regular tours. Access to Newgrange is by guided tour only, and December tours go on sale online seven days ahead.
• Chichén Itzá, Mexico. Around both equinoxes, late-afternoon light throws seven triangles of light and shadow down the north stairway of the Temple of Kukulcán. Joined to the stone serpent’s head at the base, they look like a serpent coming down. Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) gives the hours as about 3 to 5 PM, and says it shows on the days around the equinox as well. 32,872 people came for the spring equinox of 2025. INAH runs a special operation on those days: earlier closing, bag checks, no drones or tripods, and professional cameras only with its permit.
• Manhattanhenge and Chicagohenge. These are not solstices: they are the evenings the setting Sun lines up with the city’s streets. Our Manhattanhenge tool gives the dates and the minute.

Common mistakes

• Thinking the equinox has 12 hours of daylight. On the equinox the day is a few minutes longer than the night, because sunrise and sunset are counted from the top of the Sun’s disk and the air lifts its image. The page gives the day when day and night are actually closest to equal, a few days before the March equinox and after the September one in the north.
• Thinking the earliest sunset is on the shortest day. It isn’t. In New York the earliest sunset comes in early December and the latest sunrise in early January, even though the shortest day is December 21. Use the Golden Hour Calculator for any single day’s times.
• Thinking the seasons are equal. Earth moves faster when it is closer to the Sun, in January. So the northern winter, from December to March, is the shortest season: about 89 days. The northern summer is the longest: about 93 and a half days.
• Booking a solstice trip on the date alone. At Stonehenge and Newgrange the sunrise is the event, and both depend on the sky. Cloud often hides it. Plan a day or two either side if you can, and read the keeper’s page for that year’s arrangements before you book.

Plan the trip

For the trip itself, see what you can do only in the UK, is Ireland worth visiting and what not to miss in Mexico. For the long days of the far north, read things to do in Fairbanks and Iceland in summer vs. winter. On the hemispheres, there is is Florida in the Northern Hemisphere.