The day · Austin, Texas
Afternoon · 32 min left
Sun 16.6° up, in the west · Prairies & Great Plains
The kind of day it is
Heat
Hot. Growth is fast and stressed, trout and salmon retreat to springs and depth, and the useful hours are at the two ends of the day.
Water deeply at dusk, not at noon. Fish the springs, the shade and the depth.
The day, phase by phase
Happening now · 15:07–18:47
3h 40m long
Afternoon
Where the sun is this minute. Its highest today: 62.5°.
The angle falls away again, but the ground is still releasing the morning's heat. Air temperature peaks well after the sun does — usually two to four hours late.
Where the light lands · Prairies & Great Plains
The sun swings west and the towers go up. On the high plains you can watch a storm build for two hours before it reaches you.
Up close
The prairie is transpiring hard and the humidity right at grass level is far higher than in the air above. That thin humid layer is where the insects are, and where the grassland birds hunt.
The whole landscape
Supercells fire along the dryline. This is Tornado Alley, and the reason it exists here and nowhere else on Earth is the geometry: a north-south mountain range, a warm gulf to the south, and cold air free to run down from the Arctic.
In the water now
Northern pikebest now
Sitting still in the weeds in one to three metres, facing out, waiting. Pike hunt by sight and prefer daylight to dark.
Yellow perchbest now
Roaming in schools over sand and weed in three to eight metres, feeding steadily all day.
Bluegillbest now
On the beds and the shallow flats, in water warm enough to see the bottom.
Rock points and current seams; up on top at first and last light, and willing to chase a surface lure then.
Warm water holds less oxygen. Fish the springs, the inflows and the deep water, and release quickly.
In the garden now
Hoverflybest now
Hanging motionless in a sunbeam, then darting — hoverflies use warm still air and are strongest in the middle of the day.
Praying mantisbest now
Motionless on a flower head or stem, waiting. A mantis hunts by sight and needs the light.
Aphidsbest now
On the newest growth and the undersides of leaves, reproducing steadily through warm daylight.
Spider mitesbest now
On leaf undersides. They explode in hot dry weather and collapse in humidity, which is the whole control strategy.
Above about 32 °C tomatoes drop their flowers and lettuce turns bitter.
Sitting this one out
Walleye · Black crappie · Channel catfish · Green lacewing · Ground beetle · Earthworm
The full guide
Everything for Austin this week in one place.
Prairies & Great Plains
The region this day belongs to, and what lives in it.
The almanac
The year's arc: day length, the moon and the water behind the air.
The week ahead for Austin
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