Updated November 2026 · Asterfold guide
For anyone lining up a winter sunset from a window, beach or hill. Pick a place; the needle swings.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the winter sun sets south of west. How far south depends on your latitude: about 26 degrees south of west in Miami, 31 in New York, 38 in London and 44 in Edinburgh at the December solstice. It only sets due west around the March and September equinoxes.
That due-west moment is the anchor. EarthSky's equinox explainer (September 2026) puts it plainly: "The sun rises due east and sets due west at the equinox." From then until late December the sunset slides south along your horizon, then turns and slides back.
Note: looking west, north is on your right. So the summer sunset sits to the right and the winter one to the left. The diagram is drawn from your point of view.
Winter sunsets drift left along the horizon, further the further north you live.
If you're south of the equator, everything flips: your winter is June, and the winter sun sets north of west. The calculator still works for Sydney or Cape Town if you pick them, but the "winter" wording on this page won't match your calendar.
If you need the sun's position at a specific minute for a solar panel, a building survey or a legal shadow study, use a professional tool and a site survey. And if you only want to know when it gets dark, our dusk calculator is the better page.
Only exactly due west around the March and September equinoxes. The rest of the year it sets north of west (spring and summer) or south of west (fall and winter) in the Northern Hemisphere.
At the December solstice, around December 21. The bearing barely changes for a week or two either side, so any clear evening from mid-December to early January gives you almost the same spot.
The further you are from the equator, the shallower the angle the sun takes to the horizon, so the seasonal swing gets wider. In Miami the December sunset is about 26 degrees south of west; in Edinburgh it is about 44.
Yes. South of the equator the winter sun (June) sets north of west and the summer sun (December) sets south of west.
Change the place at the top and this card updates. Print it, then stand where you'll watch and face each bearing with your phone's Compass app. On iPhone, turn on Settings > Compass > Use True North so the numbers match.
One printed card tells you where every sunset of the year will land.
Asterfold is our sunset planner. Its Light Path Studio draws the sun's real path for any place and date and shows the year's range of sunset directions on the rim, with shortcuts to the year's key dates. Aim Your View lets you save the spot you shoot from, pick a lens, and see the dates this year when the sun sets inside your frame.
One design decision: positions are calculated on your iPhone, so the Studio and aiming work offline at the viewpoint. The honest limit is the same as this page's: Asterfold assumes a flat horizon, so hills, buildings and trees are not modelled.
An illustration, not a real person.
All summer the sun dropped behind the oak at the end of the street. By November it's gone from the window entirely and you assume winter sunsets just aren't visible from home. You check the card for London: 232 degrees in late December, well left of the oak. The next clear evening you go to the back bedroom instead, and there it is, sitting right over the rooftops.
The Light Path Studio, aiming and plans for 2 viewpoints are free in Asterfold.
Bearings on this page are calculated with a standard solar formula for a flat horizon, measured from true north. They can differ from what you see by a degree or so.