What are sun protection times?

Where the times come from

Each morning, Australian UV forecasts work out when the index will climb past 3 and when it will drop back below it. That stretch of the day is the sun protection window. It changes with the season, the place and the forecast cloud, so it’s worth checking for the suburb you’re actually in.

On Sunloop UV we take the hourly forecast for your area, find the first and last times it reaches 3, and round them to the nearest 10 minutes. The methodology page has the detail.

Why so few people use them

The times have been published for years, yet surveys suggest fewer than half of Australian adults know they exist. They tend to sit at the bottom of a weather forecast, after the temperature and the chance of rain. People decide on sunscreen by how hot it feels, which is the wrong signal: UV and temperature aren’t the same thing.

How to use them

If you’ll be outside at any point inside the window, protect your skin for that time. A morning walk at 7am in summer might need nothing. The same walk at 10am might need the full kit.

The window also tells you when to plan the outdoor jobs. Mowing at 5pm in late spring is often outside it. Mowing at 1pm almost never is.

A window doesn’t mean safe outside it

Close to the edges of the window, UV is just under 3, not zero. If you’ll be out for hours, near water, sand or snow, or at altitude, protect your skin anyway.

What UV 3 means