Only display post if published in last 24 hours?

Question

All I'm trying to do here is a simple custom loop using WP_Query to display posts if they are published in the last 24 hours; otherwise, a message appears telling the user to check back soon for fresh posts. I'm trying to use the date_query parameter in my arguments but I'm getting unexpected results...at first it will work, but if I check the page in a few minutes, its as if it reset itself... my loop is set up below:

$args = array(
    'post_type' => 'surf_reports',
    'posts_per_page' => '1',
    'category_name' => $cat (this is pulled dynamically in my template),
    'date_query' => array(
            'before' => strtotime('-24 hours')
    )
);

And then obviously below there would be a loop, I'm not going to share that bc its standard and I believe unrelated to the issue.

Answer 1

As birgire said date query is an array of arrays May be this solves your problemo.

$args = array(
  'post_type' => 'surf_reports',
  'posts_per_page' => '1',
  'category_name' => $cat (this is pulled dynamically in my template),
  'date_query' => array(
     array(
           'after' => '24 hours ago'
           )
     )
  );

Answer 2

before (string/array) - Date to retrieve posts before. Accepts strtotime()-compatible string, or array of 'year', 'month', 'day' values:

I would try the before parameter with a value of 1 day or 24 hours