Sunrise, brahma muhurta and the lunar day in New York
New York, United States · 40.71°, -74.01° · America/New York
Written and reviewed by The Kriya Yogi · Updated 21 September 2026
Friday, November 6, 2026
Brahma muhurta
4:57 AM – 5:45 AM
Sunrise
6:33 AM
Sunset
4:48 PM
Daylight
10h 15m
Lunar day (tithi)
Trayodashi
Fortnight
Waning (krishna)
Moon
Waning crescent · 8% lit
Nakshatra
Hasta
At 40.7° north, New York's sunrise swings across roughly two and a half hours between midsummer and midwinter, so a fixed 6 a.m. practice alarm drifts far from the pre-dawn window for much of the year.
New York's yoga scene is one of the largest and most varied in the world, spanning Iyengar, Ashtanga, Kundalini and countless hybrid studios across the boroughs, alongside a long-established Vedanta and Integral Yoga presence dating back decades. Winters here are genuinely cold and the pre-dawn hours in December and January are dark and often bitter, which makes a heated room or several extra minutes of warm-up movement before seated practice a practical, not indulgent, adjustment. Summers bring humidity that can make long holds in asana sweatier and more slippery than the same sequence in a dry climate, so a towel on the mat is more than habit. Because the city runs on a demanding, tightly scheduled rhythm, many long-time practitioners here treat brahma muhurta less as a fixed appointment and more as a standing invitation: even fifteen quiet minutes before the day's obligations begin is enough to keep the habit alive through a New York winter.
The next ten days in New York
Times are local to New York and recalculated every time this page loads. The lunar day shown is the one in force at local sunrise.
| Date | Brahma muhurta | Sunrise | Sunset | Daylight | Tithi | Moon | Nakshatra |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fri, Nov 6 | 4:57 AM – 5:45 AM | 6:33 AM | 4:48 PM | 10h 15m | TrayodashiWaning (krishna) | 8% · waning crescent | Hasta |
| Sat, Nov 7 | 4:58 AM – 5:46 AM | 6:34 AM | 4:47 PM | 10h 13m | ChaturdashiWaning (krishna) | 3% · waning crescent | Chitra |
| Sun, Nov 8Amavasya (new moon) | 4:59 AM – 5:47 AM | 6:35 AM | 4:46 PM | 10h 11m | AmavasyaWaning (krishna) | 1% · new moon | Svati |
| Mon, Nov 9 | 5:00 AM – 5:48 AM | 6:36 AM | 4:45 PM | 10h 08m | PratipadaWaxing (shukla) | 0% · new moon | Vishakha |
| Tue, Nov 10 | 5:02 AM – 5:50 AM | 6:38 AM | 4:44 PM | 10h 06m | DvitiyaWaxing (shukla) | 1% · waxing crescent | Anuradha |
| Wed, Nov 11 | 5:03 AM – 5:51 AM | 6:39 AM | 4:43 PM | 10h 04m | TritiyaWaxing (shukla) | 5% · waxing crescent | Jyeshtha |
| Thu, Nov 12 | 5:04 AM – 5:52 AM | 6:40 AM | 4:42 PM | 10h 02m | TritiyaWaxing (shukla) | 9% · waxing crescent | Mula |
| Fri, Nov 13 | 5:05 AM – 5:53 AM | 6:41 AM | 4:41 PM | 10h 00m | ChaturthiWaxing (shukla) | 16% · waxing crescent | Mula |
| Sat, Nov 14 | 5:06 AM – 5:54 AM | 6:42 AM | 4:40 PM | 9h 58m | PanchamiWaxing (shukla) | 23% · waxing crescent | Purva Ashadha |
| Sun, Nov 15 | 5:08 AM – 5:56 AM | 6:44 AM | 4:39 PM | 9h 56m | ShashthiWaxing (shukla) | 31% · waxing crescent | Uttara Ashadha |
How far the window moves across the year here
At New York's latitude of 40.7°, the June solstice brings sunrise at roughly 5:26 AM with about 15h 06m of daylight, while the December solstice brings sunrise at roughly 7:17 AM with about 9h 15m. Both figures are computed for this location, not averaged from anywhere else. If the pre-dawn window is out of reach in one half of the year, the tradition's own priority applies: Patanjali's guidance (Yoga Sutras 1.14) is that practice takes hold through long, uninterrupted, earnest attention — consistency first, ideal hour second.
In practice, most people who keep an early routine here do not chase the brahma muhurta window exactly on the days when it falls hardest against their sleep or their working hours. A workable pattern is to pick a fixed clock time that lands inside the window for most of the year, adjust it by a season if the drift becomes extreme, and treat the days it falls slightly outside the ideal 96-to-48-minute band as still worthwhile rather than wasted — the texts describe brahma muhurta as favorable, not as the only valid hour. Seated meditation, pranayama and a short asana warm-up all transfer reasonably well between a strict pre-dawn slot and a slightly later one; what tends to break a habit is not timing drift but skipping the day entirely because the ideal moment has already passed.
Practice timing in New York
+ What time is brahma muhurta in New York today?
+ Which lunar day is it in New York today?
+ How much does sunrise move across the year in New York?
+ Are these times exact?
Method
- Sunrise, solar noon and sunset: the standard sunrise equation, using the −0.833° altitude convention for the apparent upper limb and refraction at a sea-level horizon.
- Lunar day and nakshatra: solar and lunar ecliptic longitudes from truncated Meeus series (Jean Meeus, "Astronomical Algorithms"), with tithi as 12° steps of elongation and nakshatra as 13°20′ steps of sidereal longitude under a linear Lahiri-style ayanamsa approximation.
- Brahma muhurta: the 48-minute muhurta ending one muhurta before sunrise. Conventions vary between teachers; this is the most common arithmetic definition.
- Not for ritual muhurta determination — for that, use a panchanga computed within your own tradition.
Timing guidance on this page is traditional and practical, not medical. Nothing here is a religious ruling or a substitute for a panchanga from your own lineage.