Summer Solstice 2013: Two Days of Solstice

By Brandie Jefferson

Summer is coming a little later for the East Coast than the West this year; arriving just after 1 a.m. Eastern Standard time on Friday, June 21. On the West Coast, though, they’ll be squeezing into teeny tiny bikini’s earlier –10:04 p.m. Thursday, to be precise.

That’s because the solstice is a place—the place where the sun is directly over the equator—not just a date. The West Coast will get there first.

It’s not unusual for the solstice to span two days, according to Weather Underground – over the past 52 solstices and equinoxes it’s happened 11 times in the continental United States.

During the solstice, we get the most sunlight of any day of the year. Kind of. We’ll see about 14 hours and 55 minutes of sunlight Friday. And we'll have the same amount of daylight Saturday according to the U.S. Naval Observatory.  

That’s because, according to EarthSky.org, during this time of the year, the entire day is longer by about a quarter of a minute.

So enjoy the sun. There’s plenty of it in the forecast tomorrow, according to the National Weather Service, and temperatures should be in the low 80s.