Sunset is beating you home, and the loss keeps accelerating into late September. Here is what is really happening, and why the equinox never splits the day evenly.
Daylight does not drain at one rate. Near the June solstice, New York's day changes by about five seconds. Right now it is shedding close to two and a half minutes.
Earth's 23.4-degree tilt never moves. What moves is the latitude the Sun stands over, and it crosses the equator fastest in March and September. Day length swings hardest then.
At New York's latitude the day is now shrinking by roughly 2.7 minutes every 24 hours. Between today and the equinox that quietly adds up to about 88 minutes of daylight.
Anchorage is losing about 5.7 minutes a day at the same moment, more than three hours of daylight before the equinox arrives. The higher the latitude, the steeper the drop.
Near the equator the day sits around 12 hours all year and shifts by mere seconds. There is no autumn slide there at all, which is why shorter days is a latitude story.
The September equinox falls at 00:06 UTC on 23 September 2026, which is the evening of the 22nd across the United States. That is the Sun crossing the equator, heading south.
On equinox morning the Sun rises due east and sets due west, from Reykjavik to Nairobi, no exceptions. Mark where it clears your horizon and you own true east all year.
Equinox literally means equal night, and it is wrong. On equinox day daylight beats darkness by roughly seven minutes in the tropics, and by ten or more at 50 degrees north.
Sunrise is timed from the first sliver of the Sun's edge, not its center. Air then bends the light by about 34 arcminutes, lifting the disk into view early. Both add daylight.
A true even split of day and night lands a few days after the equinox, around 27 September at mid-northern latitudes. Until then, the light is still winning.