Deer Movement Forecast

Each hour gets a 0–100 movement score: (20 + time-of-day 0–45) × season-phase multiplier + weather/moon points (capped at ±20), with a soft ceiling above 80. Weather is not multiplied by the season. In order of influence (★ = direction and rough size informed by published deer-movement/GPS-collar research; the exact point values are our own calibration):

• 1. Season phase ★ — the biggest factor, anchored to a peak-rut date for your county (days from peak): off-season (Mar–Aug) ×0.55, early season ×0.75, pre-rut (−28 to −15) ×1.00, seeking/chasing (−14 to −3) ×1.30, peak rut (−2 to +4) ×1.40, post-rut (+5 to +25) ×1.00, second rut (+26 to +32 — unbred does recycle ~28 days after peak) ×1.10, late season ×0.90 with the biggest cold-weather feeding bonus. There is no separate lockdown phase (too hard to predict). Phases ramp smoothly over the 4 days centred on each boundary (e.g. peak rut → post-rut: ×1.35, ×1.25, ×1.15, ×1.05), and the day card shows “Peak rut → Post-rut”. With neutral weather this moves a prime dawn hour from ~35 (off-season) to ~85 (peak rut).
• 2. Time of day ★: up to 45 points (before the season multiplier). Full value from ~2 hr before to ~1 hr after sunset; dawn (~1 hr before to ~2 hr after sunrise) gets 90% — dusk has a slight edge. Midday keeps 25–38% outside the rut and 60% during seeking/chasing and peak rut, when bucks cruise all day. Dawn vs. midday differs by ~18–29 points — less than the season swing.
• Where the peak-rut date comes from: the county is looked up from your coordinates (FCC Area API). We then use, in order: your own setting for that property → published county data → published zone/region data → a published statewide value → a rough state average → a latitude default. Coverage: Georgia DNR, NCWRC and Oklahoma ODWC zones (built in), plus a sourced dataset of 2,194 counties in 34 more states (e.g. ADCNR, AGFC, MDWFP, LDWF, FWC, IN DNR, KDFWR, TPWD, TWRA, SCDNR county/zone maps; statewide agency figures for IA, MO, PA, VA and others). The label under the search bar names the source, its level and measure (e.g. “Madison Co., MS · MDWFP conception map”, “Polk Co., IA · IA DNR statewide”); (low confidence) marks rows the dataset flags as low or very low confidence. Tap or hover the label for the published range, data years and confidence. Agencies publish different measures — mean conception, peak breeding, or peak movement / deer-vehicle collisions (Indiana) — and the app treats each as the peak-rut center. Mississippi caveat: MDWFP publishes mean conception dates and says the visible rut runs about 2 weeks earlier; we do not shift it (Louisiana says the same about buck movement). Benton Co., AR stays at Nov 10 (AGFC/SEAFWA estimate) for now; the AGFC map class (Nov 12–21) is stored as an alternative. No agency data was found for Michigan, Nebraska, South Dakota and most western states, so they use the rough state average.
• Pressure (small, −2 to +3): based on the 3-hour change — rising fast +3, rising +2, high pressure +1, sharp pre-storm drop +2, falling −2 (combined, capped). It never stacks with a cold-front bonus — the larger of the two is used. Research shows only weak pressure effects, so it stays small.
• Temperature ★: a drop vs. the same hour on the previous two days adds +4 (5°F cooler), +7 (10°F front) or +10 (15°F+ front), applied mostly to midday — full at midday, half at the dawn/dusk peaks, 30% at night. Warm-up −3/−6; unseasonable heat up to −18. Below 30°F, cold-driven feeding adds up to +11 (scaled up in post-rut, second rut and especially late season).
• Wind ★ (graded, uses gusts): 0–5 mph 0, 6–12 mph +1, 13–15 mph −2, 16–20 mph −4, over 20 mph −6 then −0.5 per extra mph (floor −18). Gusts count at 65% (a 30 mph gust acts like ~20 mph sustained). Rain: drizzle neutral, steady rain −7, heavy rain −11, and +5 in the first 3 dry hours after heavy rain (≥0.5" in 6 h or ≥0.3"/hr) — light rain that clears gets no bonus. No overcast bonus.
• Daily hunt score (big number on each day card and the strip at the top): uses only daylight movement during legal shooting light — about 30 minutes before sunrise to 30 minutes after sunset. Night hours are not used at all. Inside that window dawn and dusk count most: 35% best two dawn hours (legal light to ~3 hr after sunrise) + 35% best two dusk hours (~3 hr before sunset to end of legal light) + 30% average of the whole legal-light window. Ratings: Ratings (same for hourly bars and daily scores): Excellent 80+, Great 65–79, Good 50–64, Fair 30–49, Low under 30. The highest daily score gets the BEST DAY tag. Always confirm your state's exact legal shooting hours.
• Stands & wind: save a property (★), then tap the map to place stands and tick the wind directions that work for each one (direction the wind blows from). Pins turn green/red for the selected hour, and every window on the day cards shows ✓/✗ per stand. A window counts as good for a stand when at least 75% of its hours have a good wind (or calm, under 3 mph). The faint cone from each pin shows where your scent drifts.
• Property lines (map layers button → "County parcels"): only free, official state parcel layers are used — Arkansas (Arkansas GIS Office CAMP parcels), Oklahoma (OGI statewide parcels, view-only WMS) and North Carolina (NC OneMap). Other states (including Georgia) show no parcel layer. Lines appear from zoom 13 and are tax-map references, not legal surveys — always confirm boundaries and get permission before hunting.
• Cold-front alerts: a banner appears when a day's low or high is 10°F+ colder than the day before. Optional browser notifications fire when you open or refresh the app and a new front shows up (no alerts while the app is closed).
• Day-card graph: bars = hourly movement score (0–100, dashed guides at 50/80); the blue line is temperature, scaled to that day's low–high shown on the right in °F. Tap or hover a bar for time, score, temperature and wind.
• Hour by hour (under each day card's graph): every legal-light hour with its movement score (rating color), temperature and wind; "Show all 24 hours" adds the night hours. Collapse it with the ▾ arrow — the app remembers your choice on this device.
• Best stand (each day card and the best-window banner): for the morning sit (30 min before sunrise to 11 AM) and the evening sit (2 PM to 30 min after sunset) the app takes the dominant forecast wind (speed-weighted average direction) for your active property's stands. A stand whose good winds include that wind always ranks above one that doesn't; the others are marked bad wind. When more than one stand has a good wind it says either and lists them. Calm (<3 mph) counts as OK for every stand that has good winds set.
• Moon ★ (±1 only — studies find little effect): full moon very slightly favors night movement, new moon very slightly favors daylight.

Preview mode: pick a date in 📅 Preview, then tap Go (closing the date picker with Done also applies it; nothing reloads while you're picking) — any past date (back to 1940) or up to 10 days ahead (or add ?date=2025-11-06 to the URL) to replay that week with real weather and see how the model scores it — handy for seeing what rut season looks like. Older dates use the Open-Meteo historical archive; recent days the archive doesn't have yet (and any days after today) are filled from the Open-Meteo forecast API, which keeps the last 92 days and forecasts 16 days ahead. Invalid or out-of-range dates show a message instead of silently falling back.

Weather from Open-Meteo (free, no key). Times are local to the searched location.