Seasons - Daylight and Sunshine explained

How to use the Daylight and Sunshine component of the Seasons page

If you've created a study with satellite weather data, you should see a "daylight and sunshine" section in the seasons page that looks a bit like this:



How to use this information

This feature strives to provide users with a visual representation of what "daylight" looks like over the course of the year, and how it changes through the seasons. It's also aiming to tell a story about how often the sun is shining when it's daytime.

The first piece of the chart provides you with a glanceable view about how day vs night changes across the seasons, just by looking at the amount of blue vs black by season.



This is a graph of the daylight hours each day across the year. The blue represents day (the amount of time each day between sunrise and sunset) and is equal to the total daylight hours each day. The black represents night (times after sunset and before sunrise).



The second piece shows the average daily hours of sunshine versus cloud for each season. We calculate this on a minute by minute basis from the historical weather data. Cloud is considered to be the time when there is no sunshine.

Using this information to inform your design narrative

Here you can see which seasons have the most sunshine relative to each other, and also how seasons compare in terms of the relationship between cloud and sunshine.

Depending on the season and climate, sunshine provides different opportunities.

  • If there is not a lot of sunshine when it's cold, passive heating strategies may not be that effective.
  • If there is a lot of sunshine when it's hot, that's further evidence that shading is likely to be a useful strategy for your project.
  • Frequent sunshine means that the light quality will be bright, potentially harsh, with a higher risk of glare.
  • Infrequent sunshine suggests cloudier, more diffuse light conditions, which might need more glazing to generate good natural light levels.

You can get more ideas about daylight from the toplighting section of PreDesign.