Sunsets 9 p.m. or later in Minnesota through July 11

It’s the time of year many Minnesotans wait for. We hunker down through long dark frigid winters. We patiently wait through fickle and often tempestuous spring weather.

Then finally, June brings summerlike warmth and seemingly endless daylight with long evening twilight.

The longest daylight days of the year are here.

Daylight in the Twin Cities will peak at 15 hours and 36 minutes on the summer solstice, which occurs this year at 9:58 a.m. on June 21.

Because of the earth’s orbit around the sun and axial tilt of 23.5 degrees, the next few weeks cause the sun to reach its highest point in the sky in the Northern Hemisphere.

Here are some interesting daylight stats for the next few weeks. These stats are for the Twin Cities, so there is some variation across Minnesota.

• 9 p.m. Sunset time in the Twin Cities on June 12

• 29 days of 9 p.m. or later sunsets in the Twin Cities (June 12 through July 11)

• 9:03 p.m. latest sunset time of the year in the Twin Cities (June 20 through July 2)

• 9:41 p.m. latest civil twilight in the Twin Cities (June 23 through 28)

• 15 hours of daylight in the Twin Cities through July 23

• 9:37 p.m. latest sunset time at Noyes in Minnesota’s far northwestern corner

• 10:20 p.m. latest civil twilight time in Noyes (June 24 and 25)

Here’s more on the June solstice from the website timeanddate.com

Longest Day in the North

Since the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun in June, it receives more sunlight during the course of a day. The North Pole's tilt toward the Sun is greatest at the solstice, so this event marks the longest day of the year north of the equator.

This effect is greatest in locations that are farther away from the equator. In tropical areas, the longest day is just a little longer than 12 hours; in the temperate zone, it is significantly longer; and places within the Arctic Circle experience Midnight Sun or polar day, when the Sun does not set at night.

Why Is It Called a “Solstice?”

During a year, the subsolar point—the spot on the Earth's surface directly beneath the Sun—slowly moves along a north-south axis. Having reached its southernmost point at the December solstice, it stops and starts moving northward until it crosses the equator on the day of the March equinox. At the June solstice, which marks the northernmost point of its journey, it stops again to start its journey back toward the south.

This is how the solstices got their name: the term comes from the Latin words sol and sistere, meaning “Sun” and “to stand still”.

Initially, the naming arose from observations of how the Sun’s apparent path across the sky changes slightly from one day to the next, which is caused by the same process as the subsolar point's movement described above.

In the months leading up to the June solstice, the position of sunrise and sunset creeps northward. On the day of the solstice, it reaches its northernmost point. After that, the daily path of the Sun across the sky begins to creep southward again.

So enjoy our longest days of the year in Minnesota over about the next three weeks!

Get out there, Minnesota.