Predicting good sunrise/sunset conditions for landscape photography

[stapo49]

I usually walk out the front and look towards the coast and what sort of clouds, if any, I can see. I can generally judge it reasonably well with that method.

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[Ted Piotrowski]

Not really an app to predict sunset/sunrise color, but I have built an app to show where suns rays are currently hitting the earth's surface at a given time on a given day.

I use it to predict exact times the sun will hit a mountain peak or canyon for sunrise/sunset photos.

I'm just building it for fun, so if you have improvements or suggestions feel free to reach out.

Find Shade on a Map - Shade Map

 

[johngpt]

It is extremely cryptic but in aviation we have a TAF, Terminal Aerodrome Forecast. It shows, for the few hundred airports for which it is prepared, very specific sky conditions by periods of time for the next 24 to 30 hours. So instead of cloudy, mostly cloudy, partly sunny, it shows cloud cover (clear, few, scattered, broken, overcast), sometimes cloud type (usually cumulus when forecast) and .... this is the key ... altitude. For a landscape image there is a huge difference between 1500 ft scattered and 12000 ft scattered.

I get mine undecoded because it is so fast to read. You can get it decoded. The times are in GMT. Here is DCA for the next 24 hours:

KDCA 182338Z 1900/2006 02008G16KT 5SM -RA BR BKN008 OVC015
FM190200 02015G28KT 5SM -RA BR SCT008 OVC015
TEMPO 1902/1903 BKN008
FM191000 01022G36KT P6SM VCSH SCT025 BKN035
FM191600 01020G34KT P6SM FEW080 SCT250
FM191900 01015G25KT P6SM FEW200
FM200000 02008KT P6SM SKC

This basically says that tomorrow from sunrise until mid morning it will be very windy with scatter showers. The clouds will be scattered at 2500 feet and broken at 3500 feet. But tomorrow night, clear skies. Maybe I'll do a little astrophotography.

But you can get it decoded.

The decoded version is sooooo long that I will just post a link. You can enter your nearby airport (KBOS, KJFk, etc) to get your forecast. These are mid to large airports. You would be surprised at the smaller airports for which these are generated. KMRB for example: Martinsburg WV.

The forecast is updated every 6 hours. These are the best forecasts we can produce as so so much is riding on them. But, it is weather.

I used this recently when planning a sunrise over the city. The forecast was for high (6000 feet scattered) clouds becoming clear. I wanted the clouds so as to capture the sun illuminating them from below. It was clear. Again, weather.

AWC - Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts (TAFs)

Thank you for the link to AWC's TAF. I was able to plug in my kabq code for Albuquerque's airport and select for decoded. I've saved the url in my phone's favorites. I'm really interested in seeing how the cloud altitude data works out for sunsets and sunrises.

Mostly at bed time I've been looking in my phone's weather app to see if the prediction is for cloudy.
If it is, then I'll get up and look outside.

If during the day if there are clouds and they're still around toward sunset, I'll wait around to see if colors appear.
I'm really curious to check AWS's TAF data when the sunrises or sunsets look good so that maybe it can act as a predictor in the future.

Thanks again Mike.

 

[Peeb]

If I'm looking to shoot foggy conditions, I look for forecasts with low dew point, high humidity, and low wind. Favorite apps are:

• Ventusky (shows forecast maps with different overlays)
• Clear Outside (this one is really nice and gives a lot of info)
• iCSC (similar to clear outside, but sometimes different predictions)
• 'normal' weather apps.

For astro, I like Stellarium, Lumos, Dark Sky, and The Photographer's Ephemeris

 

[SquarePeg]

If I'm looking to shoot foggy conditions, I look for forecasts with low dew point, high humidity, and low wind. Favorite apps are:

• Ventusky (shows forecast maps with different overlays)
• Clear Outside (this one is really nice and gives a lot of info)
• iCSC (similar to clear outside, but sometimes different predictions)
• 'normal' weather apps.

For astro, I like Stellarium, Lumos, Dark Sky, and The Photographer's Ephemeris

My friend that plans a lot of our astro outings uses Dark Sky. I love TPE for sun/moon rise/set trajectories and timing. I wish they would add tides! That’s the one thing I always forget to check and it has resulted in some last minute scrambling when my planned spot wasn’t accessible due to high tide or we had to walk forever to get to the water at low tide.

 

[photoflyer]

I wish they would add tides!

Keep in mind that if you know where the moon will be at a specific time you can make a reasonable estimate about the tide.

 

[photoflyer]

The tides and Moon relationship really got me to thinking, what is the offset? On the Potomac, where I sometimes kayak in tidal areas, it is about an hour lag. Moon rise at 8:47pm, high tide at 9:40pm and both move forward by about 1 hour each but they don't track exactly.