The green–yellow–orange field is NOAA's OVATION 30-minute forecast: the probability of visible aurora directly overhead (faint → strong). If the oval touches your area, look north — the display is often visible well south of the oval itself, low on the horizon. Updated every 30 minutes; this page re-checks every 5.
Kp measures global geomagnetic activity from 0 to 9. The daily value shown is the forecast maximum — a Kp 5 night usually means a few active hours, not five hours of glow.
| Kp | Storm level | Aurora typically reaches |
|---|---|---|
| 2–3 | quiet–unsettled | Fairbanks, Yellowknife, Tromsø, Reykjavík, northern Scandinavia |
| 4 | active | Iceland fully, Trondheim, Scotland's north, Anchorage |
| 5 (G1) | minor storm | Edinburgh, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki; US border states (Montana–Maine) |
| 6 (G2) | moderate storm | Ireland, Denmark, northern Germany and Poland; Seattle, Chicago, Boston |
| 7 (G3) | strong storm | London, Berlin, Warsaw; Oregon, the Midwest, New York |
| 8–9 (G4–G5) | severe–extreme | France, Hungary, northern Italy and Spain; Colorado, Virginia — sometimes further |
Guidelines for a clear, dark northern horizon. City centers subtract 1–2 Kp of practical visibility — check your spot on our light pollution map and drive out if you can.
1. Watch the map, not rumors. The oval above is a 30-minute forecast — if it is green over you now, go now. Substorms flare and fade within an hour.
2. Get dark, face north. Find a spot with an open northern horizon away from city glow (our dark-sky finder helps). Moonlight matters too.
3. Your camera sees it first. A phone on night mode (3–10 s exposure) picks up green long before your eyes do. If the photo shows a green band, stay — it often strengthens.
4. Peak hours: 22:00–02:00 local. Around magnetic midnight the oval is widest — but on strong nights anything after dusk can work.
Check three boxes: the oval on the map reaches (or nearly reaches) your area; the sky is clear and dark; you have a view north. The answer box at the top combines the live Kp and tonight's forecast into a plain-language verdict for mid-latitudes.
Usual suspects: city light (step out of town), moonlight, thin clouds, or timing — the 30-minute window may have just passed. Take a long-exposure photo toward the north first; if even the camera sees nothing, the display has likely faded.
The map currently shows the northern oval (above 40°N), where the vast majority of our readers are. The Kp table works for the south too, mirrored: Tasmania and southern New Zealand behave like Scotland.
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center: OVATION aurora model + planetary Kp index and 3-day forecast — public-domain U.S. government data, mirrored on our EU servers every 30 minutes. Your visit never touches third-party servers.
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