When there's a really good sunset over Los Angeles, you know you can find a hundred different views on Instagram, but photos aren't a substitute for seeing the real thing. A new sunset quality forecaster launched just last week is trying to give people a heads up about when the sunset's going to be a can't-miss stunner, or let them know they can stay inside if it's going to be a dud. Called Sunset WX, it's the brainchild of three meteorologists from Pennsylvania, and it uses an algorithm and "high-resolution forecasts of humidity, pressure changes, and clouds at various levels of the atmosphere," says Slate, giving more points for "wispy" and picturesque high clouds and docking for "thick, low-level" ones.

It's only been up for about a week, so there's not a ton of data yet on its effectiveness, though it did correctly predict "vivid" sunsets on its very first day up, and Slate notes that on a day that Sunset WX predicted New York would have a gorgeous sundown, Instagram and Twitter exploded with an annoying amount of beautiful sunset photos.

In Los Angeles, it predicted that November 19 would have a really nice sunset:

And it turned out to be pretty good:

I wonder if the sun obtained a permit for it's little sky painting today. #artwalls #fridayeve #venice_sunsets pic.twitter.com/JjapOx5Ud6 — Venice Beach Sunsets (@Venice_Sunsets) November 20, 2015

A photo posted by Mona (@themonalisa02) on Nov 19, 2015 at 9:52am PST



· New Sunset-Quality Forecasts Mean You'll Never Miss Another Stunner [Slate]

· Sunset WX [Official site]