Calendar
Solstices and equinoxes are instants. They drift through the calendar because the tropical year is not a whole number of days, and the leap-year rule corrects that drift in steps rather than continuously.
| Year | Instant (UTC) |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 2020-06-20 21:43:31Z |
| 2021 | 2021-06-21 03:31:53Z |
| 2022 | 2022-06-21 09:13:45Z |
| 2023 | 2023-06-21 14:57:22Z |
| 2024 | 2024-06-20 20:50:58Z |
| 2025 | 2025-06-21 02:42:17Z |
| 2026 | 2026-06-21 08:25:00Z |
| 2027 | 2027-06-21 14:10:33Z |
The three cross-quarter datings
A cross-quarter day falls between a solstice and an equinox, and there are three defensible ways to say when. The traditional reckoning names a fixed calendar date. Theastronomical midpoint is the instant the Sun reaches the midpoint in longitude. The temporal midpoint is the instant halfway in time between the two surrounding points, which is not the same, because Earth's orbit is an ellipse and its speed varies.
These can differ by several days. Every year page shows all three, side by side, with the difference stated. See Cross-quarter days for which sources use which, and The Wheel of the Year for where the eight-station scheme came from.
Years
- 2015
- 2016
- 2017
- 2018
- 2019
- 2020
- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
- 2024
- 2025
- 2026
- 2027
- 2028
- 2029
- 2030
- 2031
- 2032
- 2033
- 2034
- 2035
- 2036
- 2037
- 2038
- 2039
- 2040
Each year is also downloadable as an .ics calendar file. That is how this site delivers correct local times without running any code in the browser: the file carries true instants, and a calendar application places them in whatever zone the reader is in.