> Now, I always thought the summer solstice was the longest daylight day of
> the year - falling on June 21 (12:10 PM PDT), so I'm not really sure what I
> heard on the news last night.
It is, but the times of sunrise and sunset are not symmetric about
midnight, not even if you don't have daylight savings time, and not
even if you have the same longitude as is used nominally to define
your time zone. Thus the times of latest sunset and of earliest
sunrise are displaced a few days from the summer solstice, and
similarly for the winter solstice.
If you have a globe or map old enough to show an analemma, or if
you remember any of the _Sky_&_Tel_ articles that describe efforts
to photograph one, then you are on the starting point to figuring
out a little more detail of what is going on.
-- Jay Freeman
PS: I agree, dawns are lame. I usually try to sleep through them...