SProbably one of the most filmed events in nature are sunrises and sunsets. When the sky turns to fire, I don’t know of too many people that could turn their back to it and not film it.

The problem is that colorful sunrises and sunsets are hit and miss. Sometimes it looks like you may have a spectacular one only for clouds to move in and hide the sun. I’ve also had situations where everything looked perfect and then the clouds literally vanished as the sun sank towards the horizon.

Recently I discovered a new tool that may help predict when a colorful sunrise and sunset may occur. It’s called Skyfire.

Skyfire uses algorithms to predict cloud cover and type and gives the probability in percentages of colorful sunrises and sunsets.

I use Skyfire as part of the app Photographers Ephemeris. While not foolproof with time I think this will be a good asset in determining where I need to be to get a colorful sky.

The image below shows the prediction for a colorful sunrise the morning I am writing this at 10% by Indian Creek Nature Center. The image at the top of this post is the sunrise we actually had this morning.  So I would say that is a better than 10% chance but as with any new technology, it takes some time to get the kinks worked out.

Skyfire

And as always, shoot the ordinary and make it extraordinary!

Kevin J Railsback is a wildlife and nature filmmaker