Active Aurora: Aurora Alerts

ActiveAurora

About this app

Active Aurora is a real-time aurora forecast and alert app for the northern lights (aurora borealis) and the southern lights (aurora australis). For your exact location, it tells you how likely you are to see the aurora right now and over the next few hours and nights, then alerts you the moment conditions take off. Over 167,000 locations are supported worldwide.

It's built differently, with AI at the heart of how the data is processed and how alert decisions are made. Instead of traditional manual analysis, Active Aurora brings together space-based and ground-based data, live reports and real observations to produce accurate, real-time aurora forecasts and alerts. That's backed by a broad data picture, drawing on multiple space weather satellites (including the latest SOLAR-1) and a global network of ground magnetometers.

KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW
• A live activity dial shows the aurora likelihood at your location across five levels: Quiet, Minor, Active, Elevated and Severe
• A live feed gives running updates on space weather conditions and events
• A substorm tracker flags the sudden energy releases that make the aurora flare up

AURORA ALERTS THAT MATTER
• Choose your timing: as it happens, or about an hour ahead so you can get ready
• Pick the activity levels you care about, from Minor through to Severe
• Get alerts by push notification or email, with your choice of alert sound
• Add special alerts for CME shocks, substorms, IMF (Bz) surges and your own custom thresholds

PLAN THE NIGHT AHEAD
• Aurora forecasts for the next 1 and 3 hours, each with a confidence score
• Activity charts covering six hours of recent and projected activity
• A 3-day aurora outlook with a Kp index forecast and the best viewing times

SKY WATCH: LET YOUR PHONE KEEP WATCH
No more setting an alarm every hour to check the sky. Point your phone at the night sky, turn on Sky Watch and go to sleep. It watches all night and sounds an alarm the moment it spots aurora. What the camera sees is never stored or uploaded.

SEE THE BIG PICTURE
• A live aurora map showing the auroral oval alongside real sighting reports
• Join the hunt: see live sightings from aurora chasers near you
• Share your own sightings to help fellow chasers catch the lights

SPACE WEATHER DATA FOR AURORA CHASERS
Solar wind speed and density, Bz and the IMF, the Kp index, geomagnetic storm levels (G1 to G5), substorm strength and hemispheric power, all in detailed charts.

WHERE THE DATA COMES FROM
Active Aurora draws on space weather satellites, ground magnetometer networks across three continents, NOAA forecast models and community sighting reports, then localises it all to your coordinates. Whether you're chasing the northern lights in Iceland, Norway, Finland, Canada, Alaska or Scotland, or the southern lights in New Zealand, Tasmania and southern Australia, you get a reading for where you actually are.

Free to use, with no account needed to get started.

What’s new

New LOCAL substorm reading. See what the magnetometer nearest you is picking up, alongside the global reading. Fresh look for the forecast cards, plus more magnetometers across Europe, North America and Australia.