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Sunset

Glacier National Park

St. Mary, MT

Sunset this evening is at 5:13pm, to the west southwest at 248°. The low light starts at 4:27pm, 46 minutes before, the last of the daylight goes at 5:47pm, and the sky is fully dark from 7:00pm. Cloud at sunset: 0%.

The next 14 evenings

EveningLow lightSunset DirectionLast lightFull darkCloud
Mon Nov 2 4:27pm 5:13pm WSW 248° 5:47pm 7:00pm 0%
Tue Nov 3 4:25pm 5:12pm WSW 248° 5:45pm 6:59pm 100%
Wed Nov 4 4:24pm 5:10pm WSW 247° 5:44pm 6:58pm 0%
Thu Nov 5 4:22pm 5:09pm WSW 247° 5:42pm 6:56pm 100%
Fri Nov 6 4:20pm 5:07pm WSW 246° 5:41pm 6:55pm 100%
Sat Nov 7 4:19pm 5:06pm WSW 246° 5:39pm 6:54pm 100%
Sun Nov 8 4:17pm 5:04pm WSW 246° 5:38pm 6:53pm 53%
Mon Nov 9 4:15pm 5:03pm WSW 245° 5:37pm 6:51pm 59%
Tue Nov 10 4:14pm 5:02pm WSW 245° 5:36pm 6:50pm 10%
Wed Nov 11 4:12pm 5:00pm WSW 244° 5:34pm 6:49pm 89%
Thu Nov 12 4:10pm 4:59pm WSW 244° 5:33pm 6:48pm 100%
Fri Nov 13 4:09pm 4:58pm WSW 243° 5:32pm 6:47pm 100%
Sat Nov 14 4:08pm 4:56pm WSW 243° 5:31pm 6:46pm 70%
Sun Nov 15 4:06pm 4:55pm WSW 242° 5:30pm 6:45pm 100%

Reading the times

The low light begins when the sun is within six degrees of the horizon, and from then until sunset the light comes in long and warm across whatever faces it. How long that lasts shifts through the year, so the minutes in the line above are tonight's, computed, and the low light column carries the start for each evening. Sunset is the moment the top edge of the sun passes a flat horizon, which is what every published time assumes. A ridge or a formation to the west brings the real moment earlier, by an amount that depends on the skyline from the exact spot, so the table is the latest it can be rather than the moment it will be.

The last of the daylight goes at civil dusk, with the sun six degrees under. Until then, in clear weather, there is light enough to see the ground and the horizon without a flashlight, and after it the brightest stars and planets show and the skyline goes to silhouette. Full dark is the sun eighteen degrees under, and it is the same instant the night page starts its dark window from, because the two share the arithmetic.

Cloud

A clear sky gives a clean sunset and a short afterglow. Broken cloud high in the west is what lights up after the sun has gone, because the sun still reaches it from below the horizon. A solid overcast is a gray evening, and the times above still say when it gets dark. The figure in the table is total cloud cover at the sunset hour, from the same forecast the night pages use, and it reaches about sixteen days; it does not say whether the cloud is the low sheet that hides a sunset or the high broken layer that makes one.

Which way

Sunset moves along the horizon through the year, due west around the equinoxes, well north of west in June and well south of west in December, and tonight's bearing is in the line above. Nobody from this site has stood here, and the Glacier National Park page says so and carries what the Park Service does say.