How to Check the Northern Lights Forecast

To check the northern lights forecast, open the aurora borealis forecast map and find your location on it. The map shows the latest aurora forecast from NOAA. Green means a low chance, yellow and orange a moderate chance, and red a high chance. The Forecast Date field shows the time of the forecast.

If your location is inside the colored band, you have a chance tonight. If the band ends far north of you, the chance is very small.

How to read the map

Each colored cell is the chance of aurora over that area. The Min Chance and Max Chance fields hide parts of the map. Raise Min Chance, and the weak areas disappear. Only the areas with a real chance stay.

The same map also shows the southern lights, so it works for the southern hemisphere too.

What else you need

A strong forecast is only the first condition. You also need:

• A clear sky. Clouds block everything, so check the cloud forecast too.
• A dark sky. A full moon hides weak aurora.
• Distance from city lights. Even a short drive out of town helps a lot.
• A northern location. The further north you are, the more you see of the same storm.

How to improve your chances

• Check the map again shortly before you go out. The forecast changes within hours.
• In the northern hemisphere, look north and low over the horizon first. A weak display starts there as a pale arc.
• Give your eyes ten minutes in the dark, with your phone screen off.
• Take a photo even if you see nothing. Cameras often show aurora that is too weak for your eyes.

The forecast can be wrong

Sometimes the map looks good and the sky stays dark. Sometimes the lights appear on a quiet night. Space weather forecasts work like normal weather forecasts. They find the good nights, but they are never exact.

So use a strong forecast as a reason to go outside and look up. Use a weak forecast as a reason to sleep well.