NASA northern lights forecast — what it is and how to use it

What people mean by "NASA aurora forecast"

Most people searching for a NASA aurora forecast want to know whether NASA runs a dedicated public service - something like a weather forecast, but for the northern lights. The direct answer is no. NASA does not issue operational aurora forecasts for the public.

The agency that actually issues aurora forecasts is NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). NOAA publishes the official 3-day Kp forecast, issues geomagnetic storm watches and warnings, and maintains the storm scale (G1-G5) that appears in news reports. This is the organisation to follow if you want an authoritative forecast.

NASA's role is different but no less important. NASA designs, builds, and operates the satellites and databases that NOAA and other forecasting organisations rely on. Almost every aurora forecast tool - including this one - draws on NASA data. The line between the two agencies gets blurred regularly in media coverage, but the distinction matters when you are trying to understand where the data comes from.

NASA DONKI

DONKI - the Database Of Notifications, Knowledge, Information - is NASA's space weather event database, maintained by the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) at Goddard Space Flight Center. It logs solar flares, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), geomagnetic storms, and other solar events with detailed parameters: event time, source region, estimated velocity, and predicted Earth-arrival time.

This site uses DONKI to power its 7-day aurora outlook. When a CME is detected heading toward Earth, DONKI records the predicted arrival time and expected Kp impact. That data feeds directly into the forecast page, showing upcoming elevated-Kp windows alongside the probability that conditions will produce visible aurora at different latitudes.

DONKI is publicly accessible at kauai.ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/DONKI/ for anyone who wants to read raw event notifications. The interface is technical - it is designed for researchers - but the CME notification pages include plain-English summaries of predicted impacts.

DSCOVR and ACE - the solar wind sentinels

NASA operates the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) jointly with NOAA, positioned at the L1 Lagrange point approximately 1.5 million km sunward from Earth. DSCOVR carries instruments that measure the solar wind in real time: speed, density, and the Bz component - the north-south orientation of the interplanetary magnetic field.

Bz is the most important real-time aurora indicator. When it turns strongly negative, the solar wind couples efficiently with Earth's magnetosphere and geomagnetic activity follows within minutes to an hour. The Bz guide explains the mechanism in full. The live Bz and solar wind speed readings on aurora forecast sites - including this one - come from DSCOVR instruments.

The key advantage of L1 positioning is advance warning. Solar wind takes 15-60 minutes to travel from L1 to Earth, depending on its speed. That gap is enough time to get to a dark sky site once you see Bz turning negative.

The ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer) satellite performs a similar role and serves as backup data when DSCOVR is unavailable for maintenance or technical reasons. ACE has been at L1 since 1997 and carries more comprehensive particle composition instruments than DSCOVR, though DSCOVR is the primary source for operational forecasting.

NOAA is the actual forecaster

NASA provides the data infrastructure; NOAA SWPC issues the forecasts and alerts. The two organisations work closely - DSCOVR is jointly funded and operated - but the operational forecasting role belongs to NOAA.

NOAA publishes the official 3-day Kp forecast, issues geomagnetic storm watches (12-72 hours ahead) and warnings (1-3 hours ahead), and maintains the G-scale storm classification system. When you see a "G2 storm warning" in a news headline, that comes from NOAA SWPC, not NASA. The forecast is available at swpc.noaa.gov and updates eight times per day.

NOAA also archives historical Kp data going back decades, which is used for statistical modelling of storm frequency and intensity. The northern lights alert guide covers how to use NOAA's alert subscription services to get email notifications for incoming storms.

The OVATION aurora probability model

OVATION (Oval Variation, Assessment, Tracking, Intensity, and Online Nowcasting) is a real-time model that predicts the position and intensity of the auroral oval based on live solar wind data. Developed at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory with NASA funding, it uses DSCOVR measurements to calculate aurora probability across all latitudes continuously.

The live aurora oval map on this site's forecast page uses OVATION output. The map updates in near-real-time and displays aurora probability as a percentage, showing the current extent of the auroral oval globally. During quiet conditions, the oval is compact and confined to the polar regions. During a geomagnetic storm, it expands toward lower latitudes.

OVATION is a nowcast, not a forecast - it shows current conditions based on the solar wind arriving at Earth right now, not tomorrow or next week. For multi-day outlooks, DONKI CME data is the relevant source.

How this site uses NASA data

The data pipeline on this site is transparent. DONKI feeds the 7-day CME arrival outlook - when a CME is predicted to arrive at Earth, the forecast page shows the window and estimated Kp impact. DSCOVR provides the live Bz and solar wind speed shown in real-time panels on every location page. NOAA SWPC provides the current and recent Kp index readings used to determine aurora status and visibility thresholds.

Data refreshes every 30 minutes. The combination - NASA's deep-space observation with NOAA's geomagnetic analysis - is the same pipeline used by professional space weather services and aurora apps worldwide.

The underlying science of how these data points connect to aurora is covered in the what causes the northern lights guide.

What to actually check tonight

NASA's technical databases are not designed for casual aurora checking. DONKI's interface is built for researchers; DSCOVR's raw data streams require interpretation. The practical way to use this information is through a tool that aggregates it.

The forecast page on this site gives a practical view of current conditions: live Kp index, Bz trend, the OVATION aurora oval map, 7-day CME outlook from DONKI, and active storm alerts from NOAA SWPC. All of it draws on the same NASA and NOAA data described above, consolidated into one place.

For visibility at your specific location, go to the locations page to find your nearest forecast - each location page shows the Kp threshold for that site, live conditions, and dark sky options nearby. To get push notifications before the next storm, the alerts guide covers how to set up NOAA email subscriptions calibrated to your latitude.