The day · Douala, Cameroon
Night · 342 min left
Sun 82.9° below the horizon, in the west · West African Coast & Guinean Forest
The kind of day it is
Wet
and heat, high overcast
Rain on and off. Worms come up, slugs come out, mushrooms start their two-to-seven-day clock, and rivers colour up.
Check the mushroom ground two to seven days from now, and stay off wet beds — you'll compact them.
The day, phase by phase
Happening now · 18:56–05:22
10h 26m long
Night
Where the sun is this minute. Its highest today: 80.7°.
No solar input at all. What happens now runs on stored heat, on the moon, and on the animals that evolved to work while nothing can see them.
In the water now
Nothing much is moving in the water in this phase.
Run-off colours the water and brings food in. Fish the inflows and the seams.
In the garden now
Ground beetlebest now
Running the soil surface after dark, taking slugs, cutworms and larvae. One of the best predators a garden has.
Earthwormbest now
At the surface after dark and in wet weather, pulling leaves down into the burrow.
Slugsbest now
Out on everything, feeding hardest between midnight and first light, and all day when it is wet.
Slugs work all day, not just at night, and blight moves in wet warm air.
Sitting this one out
Honey bee · Lady beetle
Try it
Spin the Earth — and bring the day to Douala
Drag the Earth round, or tap the arrows, and watch home turn into the sunlight at sunrise, round to noon, away again at sunset, and through the night. One whole turn is one day and one night.
Night at home
Still dark. Keep turning — home is coming round toward the sunlight.
One whole turn = 24 hours
Turn to:
Seen from above the North Pole, the Earth turns anticlockwise — west to east — so the Sun comes up in the east. One whole turn takes 24 hours.
Say it like this
- Age 2“Round and round! Where is our house? Is it day or night?”
- Age 4“When our house turns toward the Sun, it's day. When it turns away, it's night.”
- Age 6“The Sun doesn't really move across the sky — we do, riding on the turning Earth. How many hours does one whole turn take?”
Go outside: Stand in the same spot at breakfast, lunch and supper and point to where the Sun is — never look straight at it. It moves from east to west because we are turning.
The full guide
Everything for Douala this week in one place.
West African Coast & Guinean Forest
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.
For Kids · The land and the sky
The week ahead for Douala
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