Noctilucent Clouds

Noctilucent clouds are lit by sunlight in an area of the night sky called the Twilight Arc.

My twilight-arc tracker is constantly monitoring the position of the sun at your location and calculating the position and height of the twilight arc.

The centre of the twilight arc is at the sun's azimuth. The sun's elevation is its angle above (or below, if -ve) the horizon.

The 'Max Heights' are the maximum angles above the horizon that Noctilucent Clouds and Cirrus can be lit directly by sunlight.

NLCs are only visible when the sun is in a narrow range of angles below the horizon that are dependent on your latitude. The optimum times, when you have the highest chance of seeing them are shown.

They are much rarer than auroras, typically seen fewer than 15 nights per year. They are clearly visible by eye, even in towns and cities.

There is no way to predict noctilucent clouds. The trick is to look every night at the optimum times given on this app and you will get lucky.

Acknowledgements

Global, real-time tracking of auroral substorms is only possible due to some incredible organisations allowing me to access the live data from their magnetometer arrays.

I am indebted to the kindness and generosity of the Tromsø Geophysical Observatory, Swedish Institute of Space Physics, the US Geological Survey and the Finnish Meteorological Institute for letting me access their live data feeds.

I am also indebted to I.R. Mann, D.K. Milling and the rest of the CARISMA team for use of data from the Canadian magnetometer array. CARISMA is operated by the University of Alberta, funded by the Canadian Space Agency.

Substorm tracking relies on data collected at magnetic observatories. I thank the national institutes that support them and INTERMAGNET for promoting high standards of magnetic observatory practice (www.intermagnet.org).

Mann, I. R., et al. (2008), The upgraded CARISMA magnetometer array in the THEMIS era, Space Sci. Rev., 141, 413�451, doi:10.1007/s11214-008-9457-6.

Substorm Tracker

The headline figure -100 nT is the strength of the aurora in the sky right now, called the substorm strength.

Watch this number! You want it negative. The more negative it is, the stronger the aurora is at that minute. Falling is good, rising is bad. It tracks the strength of the actual aurora in the sky in real-time. It is the single most important number on the app and overrides all others.

When it says 'growth', the substorm is charging up like a battery. When it says 'expansion' that energy is being released as aurora. When it says 'recovery', the aurora will slowly begin to fade.

The trendline shows the changes in strength over the last hour. The line dropping sharply downwards is good. Rising is bad. The blue shaded area indicates the ambient level.

IMF

IMF tells us about the future, not the present. We use it to predict activity 1 to 3 hours from now.

The table shows an analysis of the interplanetary magnetic field in the 30 minute window that is currently arriving at Earth, together with windows either side of it. The 'percentage' figure indicates how negative the Bz was, the ideal is 100% negative.

If the 'now' and 'next' rows are both lit up, the substorm will continue if one is active or will start in about an hour if one isn't active.

If the 'next' row is not lit up, the activity will start to wane if a substorm is active but there can be an extra burst of activity, so wait an hour.

When a substorm is in its expansion phase all of these values are irrelevant to that substorm. Substorm strength overrides all other metrics.

The trendlines show the Bz and Bt that is arriving at Earth now (left) and as far into the future as it is possible to see, at L1 satellites (right). Bt is at the top, Bz in the middle and the optimum Bz at the bottom (black).

The middle line is the important one. You want it to be below the blue shaded (ambient) area and as close to the black line as possible.

Solar Wind

This is the mean velocity, density and pressure of the solar wind that is currently arriving at the Earth. They don't directly matter for aurora. IMF is what matters. A good IMF will lead to aurora even when speed and density are at ambient levels.

We use solar wind data to look for space weather events that might bring us good IMF. Primarily we look for shocks, which are simultaneous large steps on the graphs.

When a substorm is active, all of these values are irrelevant. Substorm strength overrides all other metrics.

Aurora is all about magnetic fields (IMF-driven). Speed and density do NOT affect physical characteristics of the aurora such as brightness, colour or viewing latitude. Nor do they have any affect on the substorm process itself.

The trendlines show the solar wind speed (V), density (N), temperature (T) and IMF strength (B) that is arriving at Earth now (left) and as far into the future as it is possible to see, at L1 satellites (right). The blue shaded area indicates the ambient level.

The EPAM chart shows low-energy particles arriving at Earth. The protons are the thick line and electrons the thin line. The lines climbing sharply indicates that a space weather event is approaching. Proton values rise sharply in the hours before an interplanetary shock.

Coronal Holes

Coronal holes cause most of our auroras and they are regular, repeating on a 27 day cycle. Plasma from an Earth-facing coronal hole typically takes 3 to 4 days to reach us and spark auroras.

Flipping between the 'now' and '-27 days' tabs allows you to see how coronal holes have changed since their last rotation 27 days ago.

The '-4 days' tab allows you to see how the coronal hole looked when it was in the earth-facing position 4 days ago.

Solar imagery courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams.

CMEs

Coronal Mass Ejections are bursts of plasma that sometimes erupt from sunspots, during a solar flare, or from filaments. They can trigger the strongest auroras if they hit Earth.

You are looking for plasma surrounding more than 50% of the solar disk in this graphic (a partial halo). The ideal is a 'full halo', where plasma appears to surround the entire solar disk. It then takes 2 to 3 days for the CME to reach Earth.

Even when there appears to be an Earth-directed component or it looks like a direct hit, the CME can still miss completely or bounce off the Earth's magnetosphere. Don't get too excited until the app alerts that a shock has been detected!

Don't take any ETAs too seriously, either here or on other sites, as they are only a very rough guide.

Unverified CMEs are those automatically detected by the app that haven't been manually reviewed yet to confirm that they are valid and Earth-sided.

CME data and graphics derived by Glendale App from solar imagery kindly provided by SOHO.

Flares

Solar flares from sunspots sometimes produce a CME which, if directed earthward, can cause strong substorms between two and four days after the eruption.

Most flares don't produce a CME and most CMEs miss the Earth, so don't get too excited about flares.

Flares are classed A, B, C, M or X with A being weakest and X being strongest. The number indicates how strong the flare was within its class.

After a flare, it can take several hours before imagery becomes available that enables us to determine whether there was a CME and whether that CME was Earth-directed. After a flare, keep checking the Coronal Mass Ejections panel for the latest updates as imagery arrives.

The image shows the active region that was the source of the most recent solar flare, highlighted with a yellow circle. When there have been no recent flares it shows the latest image of the solar disk.

Long-Range Forecast

Dates that are coloured black are uncertain. Dates shown in colour are more likely. Dates that are missing have no predicted activity.

This forecast should only be used for dates 10 to 27 days in the future.

The sun spins on its axis effectively every 27 days, which means that coronal holes and active regions giving us auroras today can rotate back around again in 27 days time, giving another show.

These are the dates when solar wind streams that gave us good auroras will rotate around again. There is no guarantee that the coronal holes that caused the substorms on the previous rotation won't have closed but they also may have got larger. You can only use these as a guide but this is the most accurate long-range forecast for the UK, Ireland, Iceland, Scandinavia, North America and Australasia that you will find anywhere in the world.

It is essential to check the coronal holes panel, as we get closer to the dates that interest you, to confirm the current status of the hole that caused the activity, as it might have closed.

This forecast is based on my own data collected in the UK and is valid worldwide. The more negative the figure, the stronger the aurora could be.

* You need to register to view the full 28-day forecast.

Webcams

Webcams supplement live user reports by allowing us to see whether aurora is being detected on static cameras.

Swipe left/right on the webcam image to cycle through all of the available camera locations.