The Last Lit Evening

Sometime in late August, it happens without announcement. You put your child to bed and the window is dark. Not later — right now. The sun is already gone.

A child with a 7:30pm bedtime in New York gets 143 lit evenings a year. That sounds like a lot until you count them.

The last one falls on August 31. The sun sets at 7:29 — one minute before bedtime. The next evening, it is already dark when the lights go out.

The crossing date moves with latitude. Seattle stays lit nine days longer than New York. Phoenix loses the light five weeks earlier. The same bedtime, different summers.

It comes back. Around the second week of April, the evenings are lit again. But by then you've forgotten how long they last — and summer is still three months away.

The Last Lit Evening

Your last lit evening

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