The day · Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Golden hour · 12 min left
Sun 1.3° up, in the west · Appalachian Highlands
The kind of day it is
Bluebird
Clear, bright and still. The most pleasant day to be out and the hardest one to fish: with no cloud to break the light, fish go deep or under cover and only really feed at the ends of the day.
Go at first light or golden hour and skip the middle of the day.
The day, phase by phase
Happening now · 18:33–19:29
56 min long
Golden hour
Where the sun is this minute. Its highest today: 52.4°.
The sun drops back through the low angles and the long atmospheric path returns, warming the colour of everything. Shadows stretch to many times the height of what casts them.
Where the light lands · Appalachian Highlands
The sun drops behind the western ridge early — a cove can lose the sun two hours before the ridge above it does.
Up close
In early June, on a handful of nights in the Smokies, thousands of synchronous fireflies flash together. They are keyed to a light level, and they start within minutes of the same darkness each night.
The whole landscape
Cool air begins its nightly slide down the hollows again. The whole range breathes downhill after dark.
In the water now
Smallmouth bassbest now
Rock points and current seams; up on top at first and last light, and willing to chase a surface lure then.
Rainbow troutbest now
Working the seams and feeding lanes where current delivers food, rising freely to a hatch.
Cruising the weed edges, pads and shallow flats, ambushing anything that moves across the top.
In the riffles and at the heads of pools, taking insects off the surface as the hatch comes off.
Bright and still pushes fish deep, into shade and under structure. Work the edges of the day.
In the garden now
Out earlier and later than any other bee — a bumble bee can shiver its flight muscles warm and fly at 5 °C, in drizzle, in wind.
Feeding hardest in the first and last hour — it burns through the night's reserves by dawn and must refuel before dark.
Sitting head-down at the hub of the web. Many rebuild the whole orb at dawn, eating the old silk.
On the newest growth and the undersides of leaves, reproducing steadily through warm daylight.
Peak photosynthesis and peak water loss. Beds dry fast and transplants sulk.
Sitting this one out
Honey bee · Hoverfly · Swallowtail butterflies · Lady beetle · Green lacewing · Ground beetle
The full guide
Everything for Pittsburgh this week in one place.
Appalachian Highlands
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 Pittsburgh
One email, Sunday evening. Unsubscribe anytime.