This free sunrise sunset forecast tool helps photographers plan the best time to shoot by combining a location-based forecast with a practical golden hour calculator and blue hour calculator. Choose any point on the map, select a date, and instantly see whether conditions are stronger for sunrise, sunset, or both.
Search for a location or click anywhere on the map to fetch weather data and receive a 0 to 100 forecast score based on cloud cover, humidity, and visibility. The model favors high and mid-level clouds for color, penalizes heavy low clouds that block the horizon, and accounts for atmospheric clarity that affects how clean and saturated the light will look in camera.
For the selected date, the forecast card also shows sunrise time, sunset time, both golden hour windows, and both blue hour windows. That makes it useful whether you are planning a desert landscape shoot, a coastal seascape session, a mountain sunrise, or an urban skyline at dusk.
This tool covers one date at a time. To see how golden hour, blue hour, and peak color length change across an entire year at a location instead, from a few minutes in winter to nearly four hours during Icelandic midnight sun, the Golden Hour & Blue Hour Trends tool maps the whole year at once.
For what happens after the light fades, the Milky Way Planner rates every night of the year for shooting the galactic core, factoring in moon phase, darkness, and cloud forecast, with an optional light pollution map for the same location.
I built this tool for my own shoots. Every frame in the print galleries was planned this way, waiting on the cloud layers, the humidity and the gap at the horizon that separate an ordinary sunrise from one worth printing.
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Cloud Composition · 40 pts
High-altitude cirrus and mid-level clouds scatter sunlight into vivid oranges, pinks, and reds when there is a moderate, well-balanced mix of each.
Horizon Clearance · 30 pts
Low clouds can block the narrow gap between the horizon and the cloud deck where coloured light travels, cutting off the colour show once coverage gets heavy enough.
Atmospheric Quality · 30 pts
High humidity introduces haze that washes out colour saturation. Low visibility indicates particulates or fog that further reduce the quality of light reaching the camera.
Weather data is refreshed every 30 minutes.
The tool estimates photography conditions using forecast cloud layers, humidity, visibility, sunrise time, sunset time, and the light windows around golden hour and blue hour.
Yes. You can search by location and choose a date to compare likely sunrise and sunset conditions before you head out to shoot.
It works for both. Landscape, travel, seascape, and cityscape photographers can use it to judge whether the light is more likely to be flat, clear, dramatic, or color-rich.
I'm Brent Goldman, a landscape and nature photographer selling limited edition fine art prints. To see how golden hour and blue hour change across a whole year at a location instead of just today, try the golden hour & blue hour trends tool. If you shoot long exposures, the long exposure calculator works out ND filter shutter speeds. After dark, the Milky Way planner rates the whole year for shooting the galactic core, and the blog covers how individual images were planned and made.
Found a bug, have feedback, or want to see a new tool?
The Sunrise Sunset Forecast Tool is one of a handful of free tools I've built for photographers. Let me know what worked, what didn't, or what you'd like to see built next.
Get in TouchNew limited edition prints are released a few times a year, and this is also where new tools and updates to existing ones get announced. Join the list to hear first.
Limited edition fine art prints from sunrises and sunsets planned exactly this way, on gallery acrylic and FujiFlex paper, with free shipping in the US.
