About & method

Alaska Daylight answers one question for any Alaska community on any date: when does the sun rise and set, and how many hours of daylight is that?

How the times are computed

Every time on this site is calculated with the standard solar-position algorithm published by NOAA's Global Monitoring Laboratory — the same math behind official sunrise/sunset tables. Inputs are the community's latitude/longitude and the date; sunrise and sunset use the conventional 90.833° zenith (sun's upper edge on the horizon, corrected for refraction). Twilight times use 96° (civil), 102° (nautical) and 108° (astronomical).

Time zone

The entire state of Alaska observes Alaska Time: AKST (UTC−9) in winter, AKDT (UTC−8) during daylight saving (second Sunday of March through the first Sunday of November). All times on this site are shown in Alaska Time.

Accuracy & limits

Computed times typically match published tables within a minute. They don't account for local terrain (mountains delay visible sunrise), weather, or the exact spot within a community — times are for the town center coordinates. Not for navigation.

Why a whole site for this?

Alaska has the most dramatic daylight cycle in the country, and the big national sites do Alaska badly: buried pages, slow loads, thin town coverage. This site is one focused tool, fast on a phone, that never needs updating — the math doesn't change.

What every page shows

Every dated page carries more than the headline times: a week-at-a-glance table, golden and blue hours for photographers, the sun's height at solar noon, how much true darkness the night gets, and where the day ranks in the year. Every town page adds the town's full light profile — longest and shortest days, earliest sunrise and latest sunset of the year, midnight-sun and polar-night windows where they happen, a chart of day length across the year, and the nearest towns. Town pages also link the nearest tide station on our sister site, Alaska Tide Charts, and its station pages link back here.