Yesterday, the sun set in Gainesville at 5:31 PM. The sun set at 5:30 PM the preceding fourteen days. Tomorrow the sun will set after 5:32 PM, and so it will go, a little later each day until the beginning of July when sunset in Gainesville will occur around 8:35 PM. I do not understand the science behind this. I had always assumed that the earliest sunset and latest sunrise would occur on the winter solstice, around 21 December, and the earliest sunrise and latest sunset around the summer solstice in the third week of June. This is not the case.
I know two things that make me happy: 1) I don’t live farther north where the sunset right now is at 4:30 PM, and 2) I will experience a little more light every evening from now until July. As someone who usually works until around seven o’clock, this is welcome news.