On-screen features

The interactive bits around the forecast table.

The sky scope

The large circular visualisation at the top of the page shows the sky conditions. The sky colour smoothly interpolates through a full set of elevation-keyed gradients — from deep pre-dawn navy through golden sunrise, bright midday blue, warm sunset amber, and back to night — with a sun disc whose glow radius and intensity scale with the shortwave radiation at that moment. It's a live weather simulation, not just a colour wheel: cloud, rain, snow, and haze are all rendered from the forecast, so the scope actually looks overcast, wet, or misty when the weather is. By default it tracks the real current time and refreshes automatically alongside the forecast.

Day-cycle time-lapse

Press the Day cycle play button (▶) on the scope to run a 24-hour time-lapse. SunScope drives the scope smoothly through the next 24 hours — roughly 15 simulated minutes per real second, so a full day plays out in about a minute and a half — animating the sky gradients, the sun's rise and fall, and the evolving weather as cloud rolls in, rain starts, or fog lifts. A live clock label shows the simulated time as it plays; press again to stop and snap back to now.

The draggable timeline

Below the scope sits a 24-hour timeline bar. Its background is a gradient built from the actual per-hour sky colours across the coming day, so the bar itself previews how the sky will shift from dawn to dusk. Sunrise (↑) and sunset (↓) markers sit at their real times on the bar, with clock ticks at the quarter points. Grab the thumb and scrub to any instant to jump the scope — and the "why it feels like this" breakdown — to that moment, with everything interpolated smoothly between the hourly rows rather than snapping.

Day strip weather and temperatures

Each day tab in the date selector shows the day's forecast at a glance: a weather icon representing the dominant daytime conditions (sun, cloud variants, or precipitation), plus the day's high and low SunSoak felt temperatures in warm and cool colours. The icon uses the actual daytime solar elevation and cloud category data, so it reflects the real character of the day rather than a generic symbol.

Weather event banners and popups

When notable conditions are forecast — a frost, strong winds, fog, or a heat event — a banner appears above the forecast table with a brief alert. Wind banners classify conditions from Strong Breeze through to Violent Storm using standard Beaufort categories. Tapping or clicking the event icon opens a detailed popup explaining what the condition means and what to watch out for. Multiple events can appear at once.

What's Coming — cosmic events almanac

A 🔭 panel below the forecast table shows upcoming astronomical events for your location over the next 90 days: meteor showers, lunar and solar eclipses, planetary conjunctions, and oppositions. Each entry shows the event name, peak date, a countdown, a short description, and a visibility note where the event is better from a particular hemisphere or location. When a cosmic event is currently active, it also appears as a banner above the forecast table alongside the weather alerts.

For how the numbers behind these features are calculated, see SunSoak & the science and the column reference.