iOS
Duskie
A sunrise and sunset forecast for any location on Earth. Search a city or use your current location, and Duskie tells you how colorful and dramatic each sky is likely to be — so you know whether it's worth heading to the beach, launching a drone, or just watching from home.
What it does
Every sunrise and sunset gets an overall score from 0–100, plus specialized scores for photography, beach comfort, and drone flying conditions. The forecast covers up to 7 days ahead — you choose how many in Settings — with scores refreshed hourly from the latest weather data and shown in the local time of whichever location you've picked.
How the sky score works
The base Sky score blends five weighted weather factors, each scored for how much it typically affects sunset and sunrise color:
Cloud cover 35%
Mid- and high-level clouds act as a canvas for sunlight — 25–50% coverage is ideal. Low clouds near the horizon block the light path, so Duskie samples cloud cover at several points along the sun's bearing toward the horizon to catch that.
Air quality — PM2.5, aerosol optical depth & dust 20%
A moderate amount of aerosol in the air scatters more red and orange light and enhances color; very clean air produces paler sunsets, while heavy pollution washes things out. Elevated Saharan dust at moderate optical depth deepens reds; extreme dust flattens the sky.
Humidity 20%
High humidity scatters light broadly into a hazy, pastel-washed look instead of crisp, saturated color. Below 60% is great; above 80% usually means muted tones.
Precipitation 15%
Rain probability in a two-hour window around the event. Even a moderate chance of rain can block the whole show.
Visibility 10%
Haze, fog, and atmospheric clarity. Good visibility means you can see the full sky and horizon; poor visibility washes everything out.
On top of those weighted factors, a set of small sky adjustments can nudge the score a few points at a time: golden-hour duration, storms clearing before the event, post-front clarity (pressure rising after a front with recent rain), cloud movement toward or away from the horizon, and cloud texture. When one of these fires, it's listed with an explanation right in the event detail view. Two more factors — surface wind and wind aloft — feed the Beach and Drone scores without affecting the base Sky score.
Rating scale
Built for the details
Photo windows show calculated blue-hour and golden-hour timing for your exact location and date, computed from real solar geometry. Special indicators — green flash probability, fog risk, and storm drama potential — surface only when conditions make them relevant. Units switch between imperial and metric, and there are no accounts: your saved locations and settings live only on your device.
Data sources
Weather and air quality come from Open-Meteo, a free, open-source weather API — hourly cloud cover by altitude, humidity, wind, visibility, precipitation probability, convective energy, and aerosol/dust data, with no API key required. Sun and moon geometry is computed locally for precise golden-hour and blue-hour timing.