Sky
The background is the sky at the station, right now. It moves with the sun and, on a station's screen, with the weather.
Every screen sits on a four-colour gradient. The top two colours carry the time of day and the weather; the bottom two are always dark, which is what lets white text work at every hour and why the app is dark only.
Time of day
Four skies, dawn, day, dusk and night, placed around the station's own sunrise and sunset. Any moment is a blend of two, so the sky moves continuously: drag the curve slowly across sunrise and the screen walks from night through dawn into day. Dawn and dusk hold for an hour each, longer than real twilight, because they are the best skies in the set.




On the list, each card is its own station's time, and the screen behind them is yours.
Weather
On a station's screen, the weather picks one of four rows: clear, cloudy, rain or snow. The time of day blends within the row. When there's no forecast for the moment on screen, the sky is clear: that's the app's look anywhere it has no weather, not a claim of sunshine. The list and the widget are always clear, because they don't fetch weather.
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Each sky shows its top two stops. Snow is the one row whose bottom stops are lighter.
Effects
Over the sky and under the tide, the weather moves. The water under the curve covers it, so it only shows in the sky.






| Effect | When | Look |
|---|---|---|
| Rain | Drizzle to hurricanes, three strengths | Thin streaks, leaning with the wind |
| Lightning | Thunderstorms and strong storms | A dim double flash about every 13 seconds |
| Snow | Flurries to blizzards, sleet, hail | Drifting, swaying flakes, pushed by the wind |
| Fog | Fog, haze, smoke, blowing dust | Three soft bands drifting across the upper sky |
| Stars | A clear night | Mostly steady, three in ten twinkling, coming out through dusk |
With Reduce Motion or Low Power Mode on, nothing moves: stars and fog are drawn still, and rain, snow and lightning are left off, because a frozen raindrop looks like a scratch on the screen. Lightning stays well under the flash limit in the accessibility guidelines.
The icon
The same four skies, with the app's own tide curve and the bead where the water is.
Tideturn • Send Feedback • © 2026 Gerry Shaw