The Early Dark: How Long Do Those Before-5 PM Sunsets Really Last?

Ah, the annual ritual. Just when you thought you’d settled into a comfortable rhythm, the clocks conspire to remind us that winter, in its own subtle way, is indeed drawing near. And for many of us, that means a certain wistfulness as the days — or rather, the evenings — seem to shrink before our very eyes. You see, the end of Daylight Saving Time, which often feels like a bonus hour of sleep, also ushers in a period where the sun, quite dramatically, decides to call it a day long before 5 o’clock.

For folks living it up in Fayetteville and, just a bit further south, Fort Smith, this particular shift arrives right on Sunday, November 5th. Yes, that’s when we all ‘fall back’ an hour, granting us that extra bit of morning light, which is lovely, no doubt. But honestly, it also means those beautiful, long afternoon shadows morph into outright twilight well before you’ve even thought about dinner. It's a trade-off, isn't it? More light to greet the day, but a quicker descent into evening.

So, the million-dollar question, if you will: just how long are we talking here? How many weeks will pass before the sun, for once, decides to linger past that five o’clock mark? In truth, it’s not an eternity, though sometimes it might feel that way when you’re leaving work in what feels like the dead of night. Both Fayetteville and Fort Smith will see the sun consistently dip below the horizon before 5 p.m. from November 5th straight through, roughly, to the second week of December. Think about it – about five to six weeks of this early twilight.

You might notice the absolute earliest sunsets around the very beginning of December. For Fayetteville, the sun will hit its earliest point around 4:51 p.m. right at the start of December. Fort Smith experiences a similar pattern, with its earliest sunset settling in around 4:54 p.m. — a negligible difference, to be fair, but still a fun little fact. It’s during this brief window that the evenings feel most profoundly short, a quiet reminder that the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, is just around the corner, though these early sunsets technically precede it.

But here’s the good news, and perhaps the real comfort in all of this: the light does return. Around December 10th or 11th, depending on which exact corner of Northwest Arkansas you find yourself in, the sunsets will begin to stretch ever so slightly. That’s right, they’ll start occurring after 5 p.m. again. It’s a subtle shift at first, a minute here, a minute there, but it’s a definite sign that the days are, little by little, beginning their slow, beautiful crawl back towards brighter, longer evenings. And really, isn’t that something worth looking forward to?