Switzerland’s longest day of the year is here. Every 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, the earth travelling at around 110,000 km/h, completes a circuit of the sun. The longest day occurs in each hemisphere, when it reaches the point in this annual journey where it is most inclined towards the sun. In Switzerland that day is today.
Sunrise over Lake Geneva – © Nwanda76 | Dreamstime.com
At exactly 00:34 local time on Tuesday 21 June 2016, Switzerland will be at its closest to the sun for the year.
Those further west in Ireland and the UK have already had their longest day. Being further west and one hour behind, the summer solstice happened in these countries at 23:34 yesterday, so their longest day began at 4:43am (in London) yesterday morning. Yesterday, residents of London enjoyed 16 hours, 38 minutes, and 23 seconds of daylight.
In Switzerland, the longest day starts at 5:44am on Tuesday 21 June 2016, and ends at 21:31, if you’re in Geneva. In Zurich it starts at 5:29am and ends at 21:26. Because Geneva is nearly 2.4 degrees further westward (6.1432° vs 8.5417°) its sunrise is 15 minutes behind Zurich’s.
In Geneva, daylight will last 15 hours, 46 minutes and 55 seconds, while in Zurich it will last 15 hours, 57 minutes and 03 seconds, according to timeanddate.com. At 47.3769 degrees of latitude, Zurich is nearly 1 degree further north than Geneva (46.2044 degrees), which adds around 10 minutes to the length of its longest day.
Unfortunately the weather is not great. Swiss Meteo is showing cloud cover and small amount of rain in the morning across most of the country. This year’s summer solstice does not look like it will be very summery.
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