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Comment by tppiotrowski | Hacker News Reader

In the summer the sun actually rises and sets in the north so shaded relief maps aren’t that inaccurate around the summer solstice. You can see the effect here: https://shademap.app/#47.69523,-122.2484,8z,1624365005359t

Disclaimer: I made shademap

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I’m trying to remember my science accurately. Won’t the sun _never_ be north for the large amounts of people living above the Tropic of Cancer?

This got me confused as well. At noon it’s almost always to the south but at sunrise and sunset it will be to the north during the summer. Play with shademap for a bit and you’ll see this effect.

Edit: Think of the sun as following a V shape over the course of a summer day. It rises in the NE moves to S and sets in the NW.

I need to better understand this. It’s frying my brain.

I’m at about 50N and the Sun definitely rises and sets North of the east-west grid roads here in the summer. Unless it’s some crazy optical illusion, but I don’t think so.

Edit: playing with the mbostock Solar Path visualization linked by a sibling comment confirms that it starts rising and setting north between March 21 and Sept 21.

Nice website! Do you know if there is a place where I could easily calculate how many hours of sunshine do I get at particular location during the year assuming that I have lower x degrees of my horizon are occluded (i.e. I live next to a taller house)?

Try https://www.findmyshadow.com/

Another great visualization: https://observablehq.com/@mbostock/solar-path

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