PORTLAND, Ore. — Portlanders cherish their summertime evening daylight hours, and the arrival of fall is often accompanied by some apprehensive glances at weather apps as the sun starts setting noticeably earlier, signaling the inexorable arrival of the time of year that our friends in Seattle resignedly call "The Big Dark."
It's not here yet, but it's coming — sunset in Portland will be at 7:01 p.m. Wednesday and then jump to 6:59 p.m. Thursday, making tomorrow the city's last day with a sunset after 7 p.m. until March of next year. Today is also the last day of the year with more than 12 hours of daylight.
The longest day of the year is the first day of summer, so Portland's sunsets have already been creeping steadily forward for the past three months at a rate of one or two minutes per day, but it's easier to ignore when the evening commute still happens in daylight.
The real pain starts in about another month. Sunset in Portland will happen before 6 p.m. starting Oct. 30, and then just a few days later, the end of Daylight Saving Time will push sunset forward by another hour, abruptly kicking off the season where the workday ends in darkness.
So, if it helps, don't think of this as the point where things get dark and depressing — think of it as a roughly one-month warning before things get dark and depressing.
Sunset will keep moving earlier until it hits 4:27 p.m. in early December, where it will hover for a couple weeks before reversing ahead of the winter solstice on Dec. 21.
The climb back out of the Big Dark takes another couple months, with sunset moving back past 6 p.m. on March 3 and then jumping another hour later when Daylight Saving Time begins again on March 9.
