Exact date sun will set before 4pm as winter draws near

Exact date sun will set before 4pm as winter draws near The clocks have gone back and UK daylight hours are getting shorter The days have been growing shorter since the Summer Solstice back in June, and now that the clocks have gone back, evenings are closing in even sooner. At 2am on Sunday, October 25, the clocks wound back by one hour to 1am – meaning the UK returned to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) rather than British Summer Time (BST). The longest day of the year in terms of daylight, signalling the official beginning of summer, occurred on June 21, with daylight hours steadily diminishing ever since. Currently, the sun sets at approximately 4.25pm in London. As we move further towards and into winter, however, sunset times will keep edging earlier. And for those curious about when sunsets will happen before 4pm, Londoners will witness this on Wednesday, November 25, when the sun is forecast to set at 3.59pm. On the Winter Solstice, December 21, the sun will set at 3.52pm, before the days start to stretch out again. Sunset times vary across different regions of the UK. Glasgow, for instance, is expected to see its first pre-4pm sunset on November 22, when the sun is due to disappear at 3.58pm. Belfast residents will probably see the sun set before 4pm for the first time this winter on December 5. And in Cardiff, there'll be no pre-4pm sunsets - the earliest one will happen at 4.03pm on December 16. Why do the clocks change? Daylight saving, or summer time, is a system intended to make the most of the extended daylight hours during summer in the northern hemisphere. Consequently, when summer concludes the clocks are adjusted back to return to GMT. According to Royal Museums Greenwich, the concept of daylight saving time was first put forward by Benjamin Franklin as far back as 1784. It wasn't until 1907, however, that Englishman William Willett spearheaded a campaign to push clocks forward during spring and summer, and wind them back come autumn.