Seasonal figures below use a 2025 reference year. Choose a date in the planner above for that day’s times, golden hour, twilight, and daylight milestones.
Sunrise & Sunset in Durham Today
The live calculator above computes sunrise, sunset, solar noon, day length, golden hour, and each twilight boundary for the current calendar date in Durham, North Carolina. It runs in your browser from the city-center coordinates and the America/New_York timezone, so the answer stays current even though this page is a permanent static file.
Times are rounded to the nearest minute. They model a standard, unobstructed horizon; mountains, buildings, elevation, weather, and unusual atmospheric refraction can move the sunrise or sunset you actually observe by a few minutes.
Daylight Through the Year in Durham
Durham sits at 35.98°N, a mid-latitude position that gives it a balanced but noticeable seasonal rhythm. The difference between its longest and shortest day is 4h 54m.
On the summer solstice around June 21, Durham receives 14h 36m of daylight — the longest day of the year. By the winter solstice around December 21, that shrinks to 9h 43m, the shortest day. At the spring and autumn equinoxes, day and night are nearly equal at about 12h 9m, as they are everywhere on Earth.
The reason is the Earth's axial tilt of roughly 23.44 degrees. In summer the Northern Hemisphere leans toward the Sun, so Durham sees the Sun climb high and trace a long arc across the sky. In winter the hemisphere leans away, the Sun stays low, and the days are short. The change is fastest near the equinoxes — in Durham the sunset can shift by two to three minutes per day in March and September — and slowest near the solstices, when it barely moves for weeks.
The Sun's Path Over Durham
Where the Sun sits in the sky over Durham depends on the season, and the contrast between summer and winter is set by the city's latitude of 35.98°N. On the summer solstice the midday Sun reaches 77.5° above the horizon in Durham, its highest point of the year. On the winter solstice the midday Sun only reaches 30.6°, sitting much lower in the southern sky and casting long shadows even at noon.
Those roughly 47 degrees separating the summer and winter midday Sun are exactly what give Durham its seasons. A high summer Sun delivers its energy almost straight down, warming the ground efficiently and producing intense midday light. A low winter Sun spreads the same energy across a wider area and filters it through more atmosphere, which is why winters are cooler and the light feels softer and warmer in tone.
Through the day the Sun rises in the east, swings through the southern sky, and sets in the west. Around the summer solstice it rises and sets well to the north of due east and west; around the winter solstice it rises and sets to the south. The exact bearing for any moment — along with the Sun's current altitude and ESE-to-WSW arc — is shown live in the tracker at the top of this page.
Earliest and Latest Sunrises and Sunsets in Durham
It is natural to assume Durham sees its latest sunset on the longest day of the year, but it does not. The latest sunset actually falls around June 28 at about 8:36 PM, while the earliest sunset comes around December 5 at roughly 5:01 PM — noticeably before the December solstice.
On the morning side, the earliest sunrise in Durham is around June 12 at 5:58 AM, and the latest sunrise around November 1 at 7:38 AM. These dates drift away from the solstices because of two effects working together: the equation of time, which comes from the Earth's tilt and its slightly elliptical orbit, and the clock shift of daylight saving time. The result is that solar noon itself wanders earlier and later by up to about 16 minutes over the year, pulling the sunrise and sunset extremes onto dates that surprise most people.
Below the Sun's path, twilight extends the usable light at each end of the day. Civil twilight (Sun 0–6° below the horizon) keeps Durham bright enough for most outdoor activity; nautical twilight (6–12°) is when the brighter stars and the sea horizon are both visible; and astronomical twilight (12–18°) is the final fade to true darkness. The live calculator above lists today's calculated boundaries for all three.
How Daylight Saving Time Moves Sunrise and Sunset in Durham
Durham, North Carolina changes its clocks twice a year, and both changes are visible in this page's numbers. On the second Sunday in March, Durham springs forward and the evening changes overnight: sunset jumps from about 6:17 PM on Saturday to about 7:18 PM on Sunday. The price is paid at dawn — sunrise slips from around 6:36 AM back to 7:34 AM, so mornings turn dark again just as they were brightening.
The reverse comes on the first Sunday in November, when clocks fall back: sunset drops from about 6:19 PM to 5:18 PM in a single day — the abrupt start of the early-dusk season — while sunrise brightens from around 7:38 AM to 6:39 AM.
Nothing astronomical happens on either date — the Sun keeps its slow seasonal drift, and only the clock label shifts. But because the change lands all at once instead of a minute or two a day, these two Sundays produce the most noticeable "sunset whiplash" of the year in Durham. (Times shown are for a typical year; the exact clock times vary by a few minutes depending on where the statutory Sunday falls.)
Golden Hour & Blue Hour Photography in Durham
For photographers in Durham, North Carolina, the planner shows your selected date's morning and evening golden-hour and blue-hour windows. Choose Today, Tomorrow, or a date in the calendar; all clock times are calculated in Durham's local timezone.
Golden "hour" is a misnomer — its length in Durham depends on the season, because it lasts as long as the Sun takes to climb from the horizon to 6° (or descend back). Around the equinoxes it runs about 34 minutes; near the June solstice, when the Sun rises and sets at a shallower angle, it stretches to roughly 38 minutes, and near the December solstice it lasts about 40 minutes.
Golden hour gives warm tones, long soft shadows, and directional light that flatters landscapes and portraits alike. Blue hour — when the Sun sits 4–6° below the horizon — delivers an even, cool-toned sky that balances beautifully against artificial lights, which is why it's the classic window for cityscape and architecture shots. Sunrise sessions have a practical edge in Durham: the air is usually calmer and clearer than at sunset, and locations are emptier.
Solar Energy Potential in Durham
Under clear skies, Durham, North Carolina receives about 5.4 peak sun hours per day averaged across the year — from roughly 2.4 in December up to 8.3 in June. One peak sun hour equals one hour of sunlight at full intensity (1 kW/m²), the standard unit for estimating solar panel output.
Because Durham sits at 36.0°N, a fixed, south-facing panel captures the most energy over the year when tilted at roughly 36° from horizontal — about equal to the latitude. If you adjust the tilt seasonally, flatten to about 21° in summer, when the Sun rides high, and steepen to about 51° in winter, when it stays low.
These are theoretical clear-sky values computed from Durham's solar geometry — they show the shape of the year and the ceiling on production, not a forecast. Actual output depends on local cloud cover, temperature, shading, and equipment, so treat the figures as an upper bound and the month-to-month pattern as the reliable part. The seasonal swing is real and unavoidable: in December the Sun is above the horizon for fewer hours and sits lower in the sky, spreading its energy across more atmosphere and more ground.
How Durham Compares
Daylight in Durham swings 4h 54m between the June and December solstices. The median across the 1,847 cities on this site is 5h 16m, so Durham has a 23m gentler seasonal swing than a typical American city. By that measure Durham ranks 1080th of 1,847 nationally, and 6th of the 43 North Carolina cities listed here — counting from the largest swing down.
Durham sits about 3.9° west of 75°W — the meridian Eastern Time is built around. Longitude alone therefore puts mean solar noon roughly 16 minutes after clock noon in standard time, so the Sun runs behind the clock here, which is why evenings hold light later than the time zone would suggest. This offset is fixed by geography, but it is not the whole story: the equation of time moves true solar noon up to about 16 minutes either side of the mean across the year, which is why the solar-noon figure at the top of this page drifts from month to month.
About Sun Times in Durham
Durham, North Carolina, has an estimated urban-area population of 420,564. Its primary county or equivalent is Durham; its center is at 35.98°N, 78.90°W. Clocks here follow Eastern Time, which is the timezone all sunrise, sunset, golden-hour and twilight times on this page are shown in.
Because these times are computed from Durham's city-center coordinates rather than a regional average, they can differ by a few minutes from a neighboring town to the east or west — the Sun reaches places farther east first. For planning away from the city center, compare the nearby-city pages and allow for the local terrain and horizon in the Durham area.