The day · Phoenix, Arizona
Afternoon · 88 min left
Sun 27.7° up, in the west · Deserts & Dry Basins
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 · 14:06–17:44
3h 38m long
Afternoon
Where the sun is this minute. Its highest today: 59.3°.
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 · Deserts & Dry Basins
The heat peaks in mid-afternoon and the thermals rise off the flats hard enough to see.
Up close
Cactus keeps its stomata shut all day and opens them only after dark — CAM photosynthesis, storing carbon dioxide overnight as an acid and using it in the light. It is the single adaptation that makes a cactus possible.
The whole landscape
In monsoon season the towers build over the sky islands and drift out over the flats. The smell before a desert rain is real: creosote's oils releasing as the humidity rises, minutes before the first drop.
In the water now
Bluegillbest now
On the beds and the shallow flats, in water warm enough to see the bottom.
Cruising the weed edges, pads and shallow flats, ambushing anything that moves across the top.
Working the seams and feeding lanes where current delivers food, rising freely to a hatch.
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.
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.
Working flowers from about 13 °C upward, most heavily mid-morning when nectar has risen and the dew has gone.
Above about 32 °C tomatoes drop their flowers and lettuce turns bitter.
Sitting this one out
Green lacewing · Ground beetle · Earthworm · Slugs · Earwig
The full guide
Everything for Phoenix this week in one place.
Deserts & Dry Basins
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 Phoenix
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