Sunset and sunrise times in Fortaleza, Brazil

Clock noon and solar noon are 35 minutes apart here — the sun is highest at 11:25 standard time. That gap comes from the time zone's width, not the latitude.

At 3.7°S the sun cuts through the twilight band at an angle, so darkness takes 21 minutes to arrive: 3 minutes shorter than today's 24-minute median.

The gap between the longest and shortest day of the year comes to 25m, one of the narrowest swings of any Brazil city on the site.

Between solstices the sunset walks 47° across the horizon — WSW in midwinter, WNW in midsummer — which is why a fixed viewpoint works only part of the year. Today's bearing is W.

By the end of September the sun will be setting 7 minutes earlier than it did on the first, a shift of roughly 15 seconds a day.

On 11 March and 2 October the midday sun stands at the zenith, 205 days apart. Those are the only two days of the year with no noon shadow. The next one is in 6 days.

The longest and shortest days of the year differ by just 26 minutes here. In London the same gap is around 8.8 hours. That is about 20 times less seasonal variation.

Around a solstice the day length flattens out, and that is where the calendar is now: the longest day is 21 December, in 3 months, and sunset moves a mere 3 minutes earlier in the coming fortnight.