Why is sunrise the coldest part of the day

Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Is the coldest part of the day an hour after the sun comes up? Ask Question. Asked 10 years, 7 months ago. Active 7 years, 11 months ago. Viewed 8k times. Improve this question.

Patches Patches 8, 8 8 gold badges 41 41 silver badges 58 58 bronze badges. This is just a guess, but even after the sun's rays start hitting you, isn't the earth still acting as a heat sink absorbing heat, but not radiating that much? I'd guess that during the first hour the earth radiates more energy into space than it receives from the sun at that low angle.

At sunrise the light has already made it to earth, so there isn't even an 8 minute delay. Love it! Show 6 more comments.

Active Oldest Votes. Home Archives About Contact. Media Player Error Update your browser or Flash plugin. However, when the sun first rises it doesn't get warmer right away, but actually feels colder. In fact, barring any storm fronts, the coldest time of day is sometime just after dawn.

As the surface warms from the sun, the warmed earth and everything on it warms the air directly above the surface. Just like a hot air balloon, the air rises. As the air rises, it mixes with colder air aloft, warming the different layers of the atmosphere.

At night when the sun goes down, this mixing cycle shuts down. This allows what meteorologists call radiational cooling where the temperatures tend to drop. This cycle continues on a daily basis but cloud cover, warm fronts and cold fronts can always interfere with this process resulting in unsettled weather. By: Lauren Petrelli. Copyright Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Sign up for the Headlines Newsletter and receive up to date information.