About TheDarkestDay
Why this exists
The week the clocks fall back, a lot of people suddenly notice the sun is gone by the drive home and want two answers: how bad does it get here, and when does it get better. Most sunrise tables answer with one date at a time. TheDarkestDay puts the whole winter for one town on one page: the shortest day, the earliest sunset, the latest sunrise, and the date the evenings come back.
Where the numbers come from
Every time on this site is calculated, not looked up. The sun's position comes from the NOAA Solar Calculator equations (after Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms), applied to each Census place's coordinates and its IANA time zone, day by day for the season. The full method, and every assumption in it, is in the methodology guide.
What it will not tell you
This is astronomy. It cannot tell you how you will feel in January, and nothing here diagnoses or predicts seasonal depression. The one clinical figure on the site, a 1990 survey of winter depression by latitude, is quoted as context for a latitude band and never as a risk for one person.
Who runs this
TheDarkestDay is written by Olivia Wein, who built it to answer the "how dark does it get here" question with a number for one exact town. It is not affiliated with NOAA, any lamp maker or any retailer. If a page ever includes a sponsored link, that is disclosed on the page itself and in the privacy policy.