Aurora Borealis Radar — real-time northern lights visibility forecast

Aurora Borealis Radar is a free, real-time northern lights forecast that combines NOAA space weather data with local cloud cover and moon illumination to estimate viewing conditions at your selected location. The headline score is not a calibrated probability.

The forecast updates continuously and shows the current planetary Kp index, the IMF Bz component (interplanetary magnetic field southward direction), the OVATION auroral oval probability for your latitude, the solar wind speed in km/s, the cloud cover estimate from Open-Meteo, and the moon illumination from astronomical ephemerides.

The visibility verdict is one of: Exceptional Tonight, Good Chances, Possible — Watch Sky, or Unlikely. The score uses a civil-darkness threshold: sunlight and bright twilight limit viewing even when auroral activity is present. These heuristic labels are not sighting guarantees.

Built for aurora chasers, photographers, dark-sky tourism operators, and anyone curious whether the northern lights will be visible from their backyard, cabin, or favorite viewpoint. Available in English and Brazilian Portuguese. No login, no signup, no advertising, no analytics tracking.

The map view shows the NOAA auroral forecast on its one-degree grid. The separate OpenWeather cloud overlay estimates cloud cover; it is not a live camera or a guarantee of clear sky. Click anywhere on the map to recalculate the forecast for that point, useful for planning a road trip to a dark-sky location.

The visibility model is updated continuously from NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center bulletins, with local cloud estimates from Open-Meteo cached for up to 10 minutes. The cloud map uses a separate OpenWeather model; the two may differ. The story behind the project lives on the About page, and the in-app Feedback button is the way to report a forecast that disagrees with what you actually observed in the sky.