# Northern lights map: where the aurora is right now

> Live northern lights map on a turning globe: the NOAA OVATION aurora oval, the night side, the moon phase, 33 destinations with odds and the week's storms.

Canonical: https://kpforecast.com/northern-lights-map/
Updated on: 2026-10-09

Drag the globe. The green glow is the aurora probability from NOAA right now, the shaded half is the night, and every pin is a destination with its odds.

## In short

The northern lights map on kpforecast.com paints the aurora probability from NOAA's OVATION model, a 30 to 90 minute forecast, on a globe that shows which half of Earth is in night. Each of the 33 destinations is a pin with its probability right now and the Kp index it needs. A ring marks places that a geomagnetic storm (Kp 5 or more, G1 on the NOAA scale) reached in the last seven days of NOAA's measured Kp. The moon phase and the 27-day Kp outlook sit below the globe.

## Live northern lights map: the oval, the night and the moon

Live figures on the web page, refreshed every 15 minutes.

## 27-day Kp outlook with the moon

The bars are the largest Kp expected each day from NOAA's 27-day outlook, which NOAA issues every Monday and bases on the 27-day rotation of the sun: a coronal hole that disturbed Earth's field once tends to come round again. NOAA's own guide to the product calls predictions on this time scale less developed than the 3-day ones: their accuracy depends on how much activity repeats from one rotation to the next, best in the declining phase of the cycle. The dashed line is the moon's illumination at noon UTC each day, with its phase drawn on the disc. The red line is Kp 5, where a G1 storm begins.
The chart is a planning tool, not a forecast of the aurora for a night. Read it as: these are the days when NOAA expects the field to be active, and these are the darkest nights. The 3-day forecast on the home page is the one that says what to expect this week.

## Sun, Earth and Moon tonight

The drawing under the globe shows the Sun, the Earth and the Moon seen from above, with the Moon on its orbit at its position tonight. Between the Sun and the Earth the Moon is new and the night sky is at its darkest. On the far side it is full and lights the whole night. Phase and illumination are computed from the date with the formulas in Jean Meeus's Astronomical Algorithms, checked against the phase tables of the US Naval Observatory: the error is under two points of illumination.
Moonlight does not switch the aurora off. NOAA's viewing tips put it this way: the full moon diminishes the apparent brightness of the aurora, not the actual brightness. A faint arc on the horizon suffers most, a strong display shows through. For a trip, the week around the new moon gives the darkest sky, and the 27-day chart below puts the moon next to the Kp expected each day so both can be read together.

## How to read the live northern lights map

The green glow is the aurora probability from NOAA's OVATION model, a forecast for the next 30 to 90 minutes on a grid of one degree of latitude and longitude. The brighter the glow, the higher the probability at that point of the grid. The glow is drawn at full strength only where it is dark: the aurora happens in daylight too, but nobody sees it, so the day side of the globe shows it faded.
The shaded half is the night, computed from the date and the time: the sun's position gives the line between day and night, and the shading deepens from sunset to astronomical darkness, when the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon. The small yellow disc is the point where the sun is overhead right now.
Every pin is a destination of this site. Its colour follows the probability at that point of the grid: green under 5 percent, yellow to 20, orange to 50, red above. A click opens the probability, the Kp index that destination needs by its geomagnetic latitude, whether the Kp measured right now is enough, and the storms of the week that reached it. Drag the globe to turn it. It starts on the night side, where the aurora is.

## Storms you missed: rings on the northern lights map

A ring around a pin means a geomagnetic storm reached that place in the last seven days. The source is NOAA's measured planetary Kp index in 3-hour intervals: every run of intervals with Kp 5 or more, G1 on the NOAA scale, counts as one storm, with its start, its end and its largest Kp. A storm reaches a destination when that largest Kp, rounded to the nearest whole number, is at least the Kp the destination needs. The list under the globe repeats the same storms as text, with how far from the pole each one reached and on how many days per solar cycle NOAA puts that level.
A ring says the sky could have been active, not that anyone saw the aurora: clouds, a bright moon and city light decide the rest. The storms also appear as posts in the blog, with the NOAA alert that announced them.

## How often each storm level happens

NOAA's Space Weather Scales give the number of storms of each level in an average 11-year solar cycle, and on how many days they occur. The events are 3-hour Kp periods, not whole storms, so the map and the storm list quote only the days. The table is the one from the NOAA scales page, geomagnetic storms per solar cycle.
Level | Kp | 3-hour periods per cycle | Days per cycle
G1 minor | 5 | 1,700 | 900
G2 moderate | 6 | 600 | 360
G3 strong | 7 | 200 | 130
G4 severe | 8 (and 9-) | 100 | 60
G5 extreme | 9 | 4 | 4
A G1 storm is an ordinary week in the Arctic. NOAA's scale puts G4 on about 60 days per cycle, almost all near solar maximum: in the current cycle the measured Kp reached 9- or 9 on three days in 2024, one in 2025 and one in 2026 (GFZ definitive Kp). Two of those nights, 10 October 2024 and 12 November 2025, had aurora photographed from Spain (Calar Alto observatory, Cadena SER). A G5 is rarer still: the last one was 10 to 11 May 2024.

## Frequently asked questions

### Is the northern lights map live?

Yes. The glow on the northern lights map is NOAA's OVATION forecast for the next 30 to 90 minutes, and this site re-reads it at most every 15 minutes. The night side, the sun and the moon are computed from the current time when the page loads. Each pin compares the Kp measured in the last 3-hour interval with the Kp that destination needs.

### What does the green glow on the northern lights map mean?

The green glow is the probability of aurora at each of the 65,160 points of a 1-degree grid (360 by 181), from NOAA's OVATION model. Brighter means a higher probability. The glow is painted strong where it is dark and faded where it is day, because the aurora is not visible in daylight.

### Why does the northern lights map show the oval in daylight too?

Because the aurora happens whenever the solar wind feeds it, day or night. OVATION gives the probability for all 65,160 points of the globe. The map paints the glow at full strength only where it is dark and fades it to about 30 percent of its strength on the day side, so the eye goes to the night side, where the northern lights can actually be seen.

### Does a full moon stop the northern lights?

No. NOAA's viewing tips say the full moon diminishes the apparent brightness of the aurora, not the actual brightness: a faint arc low on the horizon suffers most, a strong display shows through moonlight. The darkest sky of the month is the 5 nights around the new moon, when the moon is under 10 percent lit, which the chart under the globe marks with the moon's illumination each day.

### Which storms does the northern lights map show as missed?

Every run of 3-hour intervals with Kp 5 or more, G1 on the NOAA scale, in the last seven days of NOAA's measured planetary Kp. A ring marks each destination whose Kp threshold the storm met, and the list under the globe gives the dates, the largest Kp and on how many days per solar cycle NOAA puts that level.

### How reliable is the 27-day outlook for northern lights?

NOAA's own guide to the product calls predictions on this time scale less developed than the 3-day ones, with an accuracy that depends on how much activity repeats from one rotation to the next. The outlook rests on the 27-day rotation of the sun, so a coronal hole that caused a storm tends to return on schedule, while a coronal mass ejection cannot be seen that far ahead. Use it to pick dark-moon weeks with active days, and trust the 3-day forecast for the night itself.

## Sources

- [NOAA SWPC, Aurora 30 Minute Forecast (OVATION)](https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-30-minute-forecast), checked on 2026-10-09
- [NOAA SWPC, Planetary K-index](https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/planetary-k-index), checked on 2026-10-09
- [NOAA SWPC, 27-Day Outlook of 10.7 cm Radio Flux and Geomagnetic Indices](https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/27-day-outlook-107-cm-radio-flux-and-geomagnetic-indices), checked on 2026-10-09
- [NOAA Space Weather Scales](https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation), checked on 2026-10-09
- [NOAA SWPC, Tips on viewing the aurora](https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/tips-viewing-aurora), checked on 2026-10-09
- [US Naval Observatory, Phases of the Moon](https://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/MoonPhases), checked on 2026-10-09
- [Natural Earth, 1:110m physical vectors (land, public domain)](https://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/110m-physical-vectors/), checked on 2026-10-09
- [NOAA SWPC, Users Guide to the Preliminary Report and Forecast of Solar Geophysical Data (27-day outlook)](https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/images/u2/Usr_guide.pdf), checked on 2026-10-09
- [GFZ Potsdam, definitive Kp index since 1932](https://kp.gfz.de/en/data), checked on 2026-10-09
- [Calar Alto Observatory, aurora on 10 October 2024](https://www.caha.es/science-mainmenu-95/meteors-and-fireballs/impressive-aurora-borealis-on-october-10th-2024), checked on 2026-10-09
- [Cadena SER, 12 November 2025: a new aurora over Castellón](https://cadenaser.com/comunitat-valenciana/2025/11/12/nueva-aurora-boreal-en-castellon-la-tercera-en-el-ultimo-ano-y-medio-radio-castellon/), checked on 2026-10-09