I guess we can now say, albeit with some slight trepidation, that winter is London is over and we won’t have to endure those cold, dark nights for some time. The mercury has hit 20ºC this year already and we’ve got the best days right ahead of us.
That fact is nicely compounded by the sun setting later and later, with the first 8pm sunset in London taking place today (April 17), giving us the surest sign that it’s almost time for the beer gardens; the rooftops; the flower fields; and whiling away the hours in a park, letting those barbecues cook and those picnic blankets wear down.
According to the trusty information given to us by website Time & Date, the first 8pm sunset in 2024 will take place today, when it goes down at 8:01pm. This will mark the first time the sun has left us so late since August 26, 2023 (nearly eight months before!) when it was recorded going down at exactly 8pm. That was when festival season in London was coming to an end, but now we have the whole shebang to look forward to.
Last weekend, we enjoyed another couple of days where temperatures hit that 20-degree mark, though we’d like to see a little more blazing sunshine than we’ve had so far this year. Maybe that’ll arrive alongside the 8pm sunset, though as Mark Corrigan from Peep Show would say: “Chance would be a fine thing!”
After this sunset, we’ll be racing towards a sacred 9pm sunset (May 25, if you’re asking), which is when the city really starts cooking. Just think of how the sunset would look up at a viewpoint over the city too; we’ll be counting down the days.