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Sunrise, brahma muhurta and the lunar day in San Francisco

California, United States · 37.77°, -122.42° · America/Los Angeles

Written and reviewed by The Kriya Yogi · Updated 21 September 2026

Friday, November 6, 2026

Brahma muhurta

5:05 AM – 5:53 AM

Sunrise

6:41 AM

Sunset

5:07 PM

Daylight

10h 26m

Lunar day (tithi)

Trayodashi

Fortnight

Waning (krishna)

Moon

Waning crescent · 7% lit

Nakshatra

Hasta

San Francisco's coastal marine layer often hides the horizon, so the sky can stay grey well past the computed sunrise.

San Francisco has one of the deepest and oldest yoga and Buddhist meditation histories in the United States, with countercultural roots reaching back to the 1960s that shaped much of how the West later approached these practices. Its microclimates are famously local — a practitioner in the fog-bound Sunset District can wake to a grey, chilly morning while someone a few miles away in a sunnier valley neighborhood sees clear skies at the same hour, so the marine layer mentioned above is not uniform across the city. Layered clothing for outdoor or balcony practice is standard here even in summer, since coastal fog can make July mornings colder than October ones. The city's hills also mean a genuinely later visible sunrise for anyone practicing on an east-facing slope, whatever the flat-horizon calculation below says.

The next ten days in San Francisco

Times are local to San Francisco and recalculated every time this page loads. The lunar day shown is the one in force at local sunrise.

DateBrahma muhurtaSunriseSunsetDaylightTithiMoonNakshatra
Fri, Nov 65:05 AM – 5:53 AM6:41 AM5:07 PM10h 26mTrayodashiWaning (krishna)7% · waning crescentHasta
Sat, Nov 75:06 AM – 5:54 AM6:42 AM5:06 PM10h 24mChaturdashiWaning (krishna)3% · waning crescentChitra
Sun, Nov 8Amavasya (new moon)5:07 AM – 5:55 AM6:43 AM5:05 PM10h 22mAmavasyaWaning (krishna)0% · new moonSvati
Mon, Nov 95:08 AM – 5:56 AM6:44 AM5:04 PM10h 20mPratipadaWaxing (shukla)0% · new moonVishakha
Tue, Nov 105:09 AM – 5:57 AM6:45 AM5:04 PM10h 18mDvitiyaWaxing (shukla)2% · waxing crescentAnuradha
Wed, Nov 115:11 AM – 5:59 AM6:47 AM5:03 PM10h 16mTritiyaWaxing (shukla)5% · waxing crescentJyeshtha
Thu, Nov 125:12 AM – 6:00 AM6:48 AM5:02 PM10h 14mChaturthiWaxing (shukla)10% · waxing crescentMula
Fri, Nov 135:13 AM – 6:01 AM6:49 AM5:01 PM10h 12mChaturthiWaxing (shukla)16% · waxing crescentPurva Ashadha
Sat, Nov 145:14 AM – 6:02 AM6:50 AM5:00 PM10h 11mPanchamiWaxing (shukla)24% · waxing crescentPurva Ashadha
Sun, Nov 155:15 AM – 6:03 AM6:51 AM5:00 PM10h 09mShashthiWaxing (shukla)32% · waxing crescentUttara Ashadha

How far the window moves across the year here

At San Francisco's latitude of 37.8°, the June solstice brings sunrise at roughly 5:49 AM with about 14h 47m of daylight, while the December solstice brings sunrise at roughly 7:22 AM with about 9h 33m. Both figures are computed for this location, not averaged from anywhere else. If the pre-dawn window is out of reach in one half of the year, the tradition's own priority applies: Patanjali's guidance (Yoga Sutras 1.14) is that practice takes hold through long, uninterrupted, earnest attention — consistency first, ideal hour second.

In practice, most people who keep an early routine here do not chase the brahma muhurta window exactly on the days when it falls hardest against their sleep or their working hours. A workable pattern is to pick a fixed clock time that lands inside the window for most of the year, adjust it by a season if the drift becomes extreme, and treat the days it falls slightly outside the ideal 96-to-48-minute band as still worthwhile rather than wasted — the texts describe brahma muhurta as favorable, not as the only valid hour. Seated meditation, pranayama and a short asana warm-up all transfer reasonably well between a strict pre-dawn slot and a slightly later one; what tends to break a habit is not timing drift but skipping the day entirely because the ideal moment has already passed.

Practice timing in San Francisco

+ What time is brahma muhurta in San Francisco today?
Working back from a computed sunrise of 6:41 AM, the window runs from about 5:05 AM to 5:53 AM local time — 96 to 48 minutes before sunrise. It moves every day with the Sun, so check the table rather than fixing it in your head.
+ Which lunar day is it in San Francisco today?
At local sunrise it is Trayodashi, in the waning (krishna) fortnight, with the Moon about 7% illuminated in Hasta. Tithis run between roughly 19 and 26 hours, so a single date can straddle two; the label here is the one in force at sunrise, which is the usual convention.
+ How much does sunrise move across the year in San Francisco?
At this latitude, the June solstice sunrise falls around 5:49 AM with about 14h 47m of daylight, and the December solstice sunrise around 7:22 AM with about 9h 33m. That spread is exactly why a sunrise-anchored routine and a clock-anchored one diverge.
+ Are these times exact?
Sunrise and sunset are computed for a sea-level horizon and should be within a minute or two of an observatory table; hills, buildings and altitude shift what you actually see. Tithi and nakshatra use truncated lunar series, so near a boundary a full panchanga may label the day differently. Nothing here is intended for ritual muhurta determination.

Method

  • Sunrise, solar noon and sunset: the standard sunrise equation, using the −0.833° altitude convention for the apparent upper limb and refraction at a sea-level horizon.
  • Lunar day and nakshatra: solar and lunar ecliptic longitudes from truncated Meeus series (Jean Meeus, "Astronomical Algorithms"), with tithi as 12° steps of elongation and nakshatra as 13°20′ steps of sidereal longitude under a linear Lahiri-style ayanamsa approximation.
  • Brahma muhurta: the 48-minute muhurta ending one muhurta before sunrise. Conventions vary between teachers; this is the most common arithmetic definition.
  • Not for ritual muhurta determination — for that, use a panchanga computed within your own tradition.

Timing guidance on this page is traditional and practical, not medical. Nothing here is a religious ruling or a substitute for a panchanga from your own lineage.