For decades, New Jersey’s sunset has been a quiet ritual—spectators lining coastal roads, fishermen adjusting nets, and skywatchers noting the daily descent of light across the Meadowlands and along the Jersey Shore. But beneath the predictable rhythm lies a subtle shift: the sunset is arriving earlier, not in dramatic leaps, but in a cumulative erosion of time that’s reshaping how communities experience daylight. The question isn’t just “Is it earlier?”—it’s “By how much, and what does that mean for the people who live by the clock?”

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