After weeks of short winter days, Seattleites will finally see the sun set after the 4:00 p.m. hour again this month. In just one week from today, on Sunday, January 25, the sun will set at 5:00 p.m. in Seattle—a small but meaningful milestone for anyone who’s been heading home from work in the dark.
If you’re in Seattle and missing the sun, we can’t blame you. On November 2, 2025, daylight saving time ended, and the sun suddenly went down an hour earlier. Seattleites went from a 5:51 p.m. sunset on Saturday, November 1, to a 4:49 p.m. sunset on Sunday, November 2. That abrupt shift can be jarring, especially when paired with the steady march toward winter’s shortest days. By the time the winter solstice arrived on December 21, Seattle was seeing a total of only about eight hours of daylight. Compare that to roughly 16 hours of sunlight at the peak of summer, and it’s easy to understand why so many locals invest in sun lamps and vitamin D supplements to get through the season.
Even though December has the shortest days, January feels like the darkest month in Seattle. That’s because it’s typically Seattle’s cloudiest month, with overcast or mostly cloudy skies about 71% of the time…