Winter will not officially begin until the winter solstice on Dec. 21, but the earliest sunset of the year will occur two weeks sooner on Dec. 8, according to astronomers.
The sun will set Thursday before the average workday ends, at 4:19 p.m., as reported by the website Time and Date. The sun will then set later each day moving forward. It will take more than a week for this change to become noticeable by a minute.
The winter solstice marks the least sunny day of the year and coincides with the first day of winter.
This year’s winter solstice will take place on a Wednesday. On that day, Chicago will have about nine hours and just under eight minutes of sunlight. From then on, the days will become longer. Chicago will eventually get over 10 hours of sunlight on Jan. 30, according to Time and Date.
While the sun will set increasingly later, so will the sunrise, up until Jan. 3 at 7:18 a.m.
