Thornton, Colorado Sunset Time Today

Sunrise time in Thornton

The sun rises in Thornton at 5:59 AM today and at 6:00 AM tomorrow (1 minute later than today).

First light comes before the sun itself: civil twilight — the blue-hour glow already bright enough to see by — begins around 5:29 AM, roughly half an hour ahead of sunrise.

For photographers, the morning golden hour — the warm, low-angle light just after the sun clears the horizon — runs from about 5:59 AM to 6:59 AM.

Thornton daylight month by month

Sunrise, sunset, and total daylight for the first of each month in 2026, computed from Thornton’s coordinates in local time. The line traces how the day stretches toward summer and contracts toward winter.

Thornton’s longest and shortest days

Thornton’s longest day falls on June 21, 2026 with 15h 0m of daylight; the shortest is December 21, 2026 with just 9h 20m. The two equinoxes, when day and night run nearly equal, sit in between.

How fast Thornton gains and loses daylight

The pace of change is not steady. Each month gains or loses a different amount, fastest around the equinoxes and nearly frozen at the solstices. The rate below is the daily change mid-month; the net is the full swing across the month.

Thornton golden hour & blue hour by season

Golden hour is the warm, low-sun light; blue hour is the cooler twilight that brackets it. These windows come from Thornton’s true solar geometry — the sun’s altitude, not a fixed hour — so they stretch toward the solstices and run longer than the rule-of-thumb hour.

Daylight saving time in Thornton

Thornton springs its clocks forward on Sunday, March 8, 2026 and falls back on Sunday, November 1, 2026. Between those dates the local clock runs an hour later, so sunrise and sunset both read later — though the amount of daylight is unchanged; only the label on the clock moves.

Why sunset time shifts in Thornton

Sunset drifts through the year with Earth’s ~23.4° axial tilt — see the full daylight explainer.

In Thornton, the longest day carries about 15h 0m of daylight and the shortest just 9h 20m — a swing of roughly 5h 40m between the June and December solstices. The farther a place sits from the equator, the wider that gap; the pace also isn’t steady, moving fastest near the equinoxes and barely at all near the solstices. Every figure here is computed from the sun’s position for Thornton’s exact coordinates, in local time.

More for Thornton

See the full Thornton, CO weather forecast — hour-by-hour outlook, NOAA radar, satellite, and air quality.