Today is the longest day, but the earliest sunrise occured nearly a week ago on <2021-06-15 Tue> as interestingly the earliest sunrise does not occur on the longest day.
Likewise the earliest sunset occurs around two weeks before, and the latest sunrise about two weeks after, the winter solstice.
This is because the Earth moves in an elliptical orbit around the sun (Kepler’s 1st law), and travels faster when closest to the sun (Kepler’s 2nd law) at the winter solstice, and slower at the summer solstice when it is further away. This variation in speed causes the apparent position of the sun in sky at midday to trace a figure-8 pattern called an analemma, so our mean solar time midday is not when the sun is at it’s highest point in the sky. That is, midday isn’t exactly in the middle of the day hence why the earliest sunrise and latest sunset don’t occur today.
This is also the day I (re)start this blog. It has only been 1574 days since the last post which is, I think we can all agree, a long stretch of days.