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Ephemeris: 06/19/2026 – Summer begins Sunday as the Sun reaches the summer solstice

June 19, 2026 Leave a comment

This is Ephemeris for Juneteenth, Friday, June 19th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 34 minutes, setting at 9:31, and it will rise tomorrow at 5:57. The Moon, 2 days before first quarter, will set at 12:58 tomorrow morning.

Summer will arrive at 4:25 AM Sunday morning (8:25 UT). Then the Sun will be out 15 hours 34 minutes for us in the Interlochen/Traverse City area. That’s within the same minute as today. Also, the Sun will reach up to nearly 69 degrees altitude above the southern horizon at local noon, that’s 1:44 pm. After the summer solstice we will begin to climb down from those extreme values, at first slowly, but with increasing rapidity as summer goes on. However, the Northern Hemisphere is continuing to warm up. Our warmest average temperatures tend to be near the end of July. What’s really neat is, the Earth is farther from the Sun than it was six months ago as winter started. It doesn’t make us any cooler, but makes summer longer.

The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.

Addendum

The Sun's path on the summer solstice
The Sun’s path through the sky on the summer solstice day from Traverse City, MI. This is a stereographic projection which distorts things near the horizon. Altitude and azimuth lines are 15º apart. Created using my LookingUp program.
DSCOVR image of Earth near summer solstice with magnified Michigan animation
DSCOVR image of Earth near summer solstice with magnified Michigan animation. Most of Michigan’n mitt is obscured in the north where I’m located, plus the Upper Peninsula. Image taken 1:26 pm EDT, June 19, 2022. Credit NASA/NOAA DSCOVR satellite in halo orbit of Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange Point.
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