Photo: Marcos Barbero
Aurora alerts
Viewpoint tells you whether the lights can reach your spot at all, gives you tonight's facts, and alerts you while there is still time to go.
iPhone · Android · Web app · Part of the Max plan
The aurora is the one thing in the night sky you cannot put in a diary. A geomagnetic storm gives you a few hours’ warning, and a substorm can begin and end inside ninety minutes. So the question is never “will there be an aurora next Tuesday”. It is “should I get in the car right now?”
Viewpoint answers it in two parts: whether the lights can reach a place at all, and whether they are happening tonight.
The oval forms around the magnetic poles, not the geographic ones, so map latitude misleads. Open a saved spot and Viewpoint gives you a verdict for that exact place: how often the oval can get there, and the lowest Kp it takes. Places on the edge of what the model can resolve are marked uncertain rather than given a confident number.
Activity (the Kp now, how old the reading is, tonight's highest forecast), what your place needs, the dark window in the place's own time zone, the moon, and the cloud. Facts, never a verdict. The decision to go is yours.
When the forecast first reaches your place's threshold during tonight's dark window, the aurora joins that place's briefing a few hours ahead, so you can plan the trip. Tap it and the aurora sheet opens at that hour.
Tap the bell on a place, switch aurora on, tap Turn on alerts. When the Kp has reached your place's own threshold, it is dark there and the cloud is thin enough, you hear about it inside the window: one alert per onset, not a stream while a storm runs.
On the iPad and the web, too
Who it is for
You live where the oval reaches on a good night and want a nudge while there is still time to drive.
Planning Iceland from somewhere else? Dark windows and times read in the destination's own time zone, not yours.
Find out honestly whether the aurora can reach your home spot, and what Kp it takes, before you set an alarm.
The plan
Included in
Max
Aurora alerts are part of the Max plan, on iPhone, Android and the web app.
Get the app Compare plansFAQ
Viewpoint tells you two things: whether the aurora can reach your spot at all, and the facts for tonight (the Kp now, tonight's forecast, your dark window, the moon and the cloud). It cannot see the display, so it never promises one. "Reaches here" is a statement about what is possible.
The aurora forms in ovals around the Earth's magnetic poles, which sit a long way from the geographic ones. Two places at nearly the same map latitude can be very different: a big storm reaches Chicago, while a storm of the same scale does not reach Madrid. Viewpoint uses the geomagnetic latitude of your exact spot.
It depends on the place. Every saved spot gets its own lowest Kp: "reaches here at Kp 3" and "reaches here at Kp 7" are very different invitations. Alerts use that number, not a global one.
Only when three things hold together: the Kp has reached your place's own threshold, it is dark there, and the cloud is thin enough to see through. You get one alert per onset. If the sky goes quiet and flares up again a good while later, that is a new event.
No. It reads the live measurement and the Kp forecast; it does not predict what the sun will do over the next few days. For that, use a dedicated space-weather or aurora forecast.
Yes, with a caveat. The geomagnetic model is weakest in the far south (Australia, New Zealand, southern South America). Treat a quiet verdict there as the model's estimate rather than the last word, and check a regional aurora forecast as well.
Aurora alerts are part of the Max plan. The aurora tile, sheet and alerts are on iPhone and Android; the web app shows the aurora card on a spot, with the reach verdict, tonight's Kp, the dark window and the bell.
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Plan the clear, moonless nights it needs.
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Find out whether the aurora can reach your spot, and hear about it while there is still time to get there.
iPhone, Android and web. Aurora alerts are part of the Max plan.
