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Northern Lights Forecast

G1 (Minor) storm watch: stronger aurora expected in the next 3 days Where to look tonight

Data Sources

Last updated

NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center

We read these public-domain products from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) every five minutes:

  • Planetary Kp, 1-minute estimate: the live “Kp now” value.
  • Planetary Kp forecast: observed and predicted Kp in 3-hour blocks for about three days.
  • 27-day space weather outlook: expected daily maximum Kp for four weeks.
  • OVATION aurora forecast: probability of aurora overhead about 30–90 minutes ahead, on a 1° grid. Powers the aurora map.
  • Real-time solar wind summary: solar wind speed, Bz and Bt from spacecraft at the L1 point.
  • NOAA space weather scales: current geomagnetic storm level and predicted levels for three days.

MET Norway

Hourly cloud cover and air temperature for every forecast place come from the MET Norway Locationforecast API, licensed under CC BY 4.0. We refresh each place about once an hour and respect MET Norway’s caching rules.

Weather data by MET Norway, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Modified by Northern Lights Forecast: cloud cover is rounded to whole percentages and combined with NOAA space weather data to calculate the aurora chance. Forecasts are made for our fixed forecast places only; your own location is never sent to MET Norway.

Calculated by us

These values are computed from the data above, using open, published methods:

  • Geomagnetic latitude (centred dipole, pole at 80.8° N, 72.7° W, epoch 2025).
  • Kp needed for each place (equatorward edge of the auroral oval by Kp).
  • Darkness window (sun below −12°), sunrise and sunset (NOAA solar position algorithm).
  • Moon phase and illumination (mean lunar cycle).
  • The aurora chance itself. See how we calculate it.

Map

Base map tiles from OpenFreeMap, using data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Map rendering by MapLibre GL JS.

Freshness

Every live panel shows when it was last updated. If our data is more than 20 minutes old, we say so with a “Data delayed” notice rather than showing stale numbers as current.