Why doesn’t the summer solstice have the earliest sunrise or latest sunset of the year?

It’s up to the complicated discrepancy between our stupid human clocks and the actual length of the day. Measured from one solar noon—when the sun is at its highest point in the sky—to the next, the days around the solstice are actually approximate 15 seconds longer than 24 hours. But that means solar noon rarely coincides with noon on your watch, which in turn shifts sunrise and sunset times on the watch.

Although there is more daylight on the summer solstice than on any other day of the year, the earliest sunrise comes before the summer solstice and the latest sunset after.