Press and media
Covering tonight's aurora?
When a storm hits, the question every newsroom needs answered is where it will actually be visible — not what the aurora is. That is the question this site answers, for 402 cities, in six languages, updated continuously. Everything here is ready to quote.
Ready to quote
Paste this as-is, or ask for a version written to your angle. No approval needed and no embargo — it is written to be used.
Whether you see the aurora tonight comes down to four things at once: how disturbed the Earth's magnetic field is, how far north you are, whether the sky is dark enough, and whether there is cloud in the way. Geomagnetic activity is the part that makes headlines, but cloud is what most often decides it — a severe storm over an overcast city shows nobody anything, while a modest one over a clear Arctic sky puts on a display. That is why a national forecast is close to useless: visibility is a local question, and it changes hour by hour.
If you need a specific city, a number for tonight, or something shorter, email us and we will send what we can.
What we can give you
All of it is free, and none of it requires a licence agreement.
Visibility for any city, tonight
402 cities with a live verdict rather than a map you have to interpret — the Kp needed there, whether the sky is dark yet, and current cloud cover.
A plain-language read on the storm
What the current numbers mean in practice, and — more usefully — what they do not mean. We will tell you when a forecast is being over-sold.
An embeddable live forecast
A self-contained widget for any city that updates itself, so a live article stays correct after you have filed it.
Six languages
The same forecast in English, German, French, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese, for wire copy and syndication.
Where the numbers come from
We generate no space-weather data of our own. Everything traces to a public source you can cite directly, and we would rather you did than take our word for it.
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
Planetary K-index and the OVATION auroral-oval model — the official US forecast, and the basis of the geomagnetic side of every verdict here.
Open-Meteo
Hourly cloud cover per city. The part that decides most nights, and the part most aurora coverage leaves out.
Fast facts
- Cities with a live forecast
- 402
- Languages
- 6
- Space-weather source
- NOAA SWPC
- Cloud source
- Open-Meteo
- Cost to readers
- Free, no account
Using our material
Quote it, screenshot it, or embed it. We ask only that you name the site and link to it, and that a screenshot carries the time it was taken — an aurora forecast is a perishable thing and an undated one will be wrong within hours.
Talk to us tonight
Storm coverage runs to a deadline, so say what you need and by when. We reply as quickly as we can.