My Aurora Forecast, SpaceWeatherLive, Glendale, Hello Aurora, and AuroraWatch UK compared: what each shows, what's free, and who each app actually suits best.
A decade of dark-sky travel, from the Atacama altiplano to Arctic Norway, informs her destination guides and aurora forecasting at Dark Skies Atlas, written for trip-planning travelers and astrophotography beginners.
Our top pick
My Aurora Forecast & Alerts
Best for plain answers
My Aurora Forecast & Alerts wins for most travelers because it turns NOAA's OVATION feed into a plain-language likelihood score and multi-week outlook, no chart or Bz graph to interpret. Serious chasers who want the data behind the forecast should run SpaceWeatherLive alongside it for its live Bz, Bt, and solar wind speed feeds.
Nearly every app on this list, one exception aside, repackages the same free NOAA OVATION feed updated every five minutes.
Runner-up: #2 SpaceWeatherLive — the raw-data pick for serious chasers
Most aurora forecast apps show the same five things, just packaged differently: a Kp index reading, the 0-9 scale for how disturbed Earth's magnetic field currently is; a visual auroral oval map; real-time solar wind data, especially the Bz component of the interplanetary magnetic field, one of the best short-term predictors of an active night; a cloud cover overlay for your exact location; and configurable push alerts. None of that is proprietary. What separates a good app from a mediocre one is how it packages that data: whether the map updates fast enough, whether alerts respect your local darkness window, and whether the interface makes sense at 11pm in a parking lot with cold fingers.
Nearly every app on this list, with one exception, is repackaging the same small set of free government data feeds. The core one is NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, which runs the Aurora - 30 Minute Forecast, an OVATION-based map updated every five minutes that projects aurora location and intensity roughly 30 to 90 minutes ahead. OVATION, an empirical model built at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, runs on solar wind velocity and interplanetary magnetic field readings measured far upstream of Earth; when that upstream data drops out, the model falls back to an estimate driven by the current Kp reading instead. The one real exception is AuroraWatch UK, run by Lancaster University's Space and Planetary Physics group, which skips OVATION entirely in favor of ground-based magnetometer readings from the UK's SAMNET and AuroraWatchNet networks.
This guide ranks the five apps travelers actually use, from a plain likelihood score to the raw solar wind data behind it, on how well each one turns that same public feed into a decision you can act on at night.
How we chose
The places on this list were selected against the following editorial criteria.
| Pick | Price | Why it makes the list | Book or view |
|---|---|---|---|
| My Aurora Forecast & Alerts Best for plain answers | Free, ad-supported; one-time Pro purchase removes ads | Plain-language likelihood score from NOAA OVATION, plus a built-in cloud cover overlay | Get the app |
| SpaceWeatherLive Best for raw data | Free; ad removal subscription $0.99/mo to $9.99/yr | Live Bz/Bt graph, Kp gauge, solar wind speed, night-vision display mode | Get the app |
| Glendale App Best for advance trip planning | Free (registration required for full 28-day outlook) | Real-time substorm tracking plus a 28-day aurora activity outlook | Get the app |
| Hello Aurora Best for social aurora chasing | Free + paid tier | Arctic magnetometer data plus crowd-sourced spotted-near-you alerts | Get the app |
| AuroraWatch UK Best free UK ground-truth check | Free | UK-only four-level alert system built on ground-based magnetometer data | Get the app |
My Aurora Forecast & Alerts
SpaceWeatherLive
Glendale App
Hello Aurora
AuroraWatch UK
Reporter notebook
Kp reacts slowly, since it's a rolling three-hour average. The Bz component of the solar wind's magnetic field shifts within minutes, and a sharp southward turn can trigger a substorm before the next Kp reading even updates. If your app shows a live Bz graph, check it before you decide whether it's worth heading outside on a fast-moving night.
Every app on this list works without paying anything. My Aurora Forecast & Alerts and SpaceWeatherLive both charge to remove ads, one a one-time Pro purchase, the other a subscription running from about $0.99 a month to $9.99 a year, but neither locks core forecasting data behind a paywall. Hello Aurora is the one exception, where Pro also unlocks distance-based alerts and unlimited photo sharing.
In this guide
Best for plain answers
Free, ad-supported; one-time Pro purchase removes ads
My Aurora Forecast & Alerts, from jRustonApps, is the pick for most travelers who want a plain answer rather than a chart to interpret. It translates NOAA's OVATION feed into a plain-language likelihood score for your region, a map of current best viewing spots, forecasts running from the next hour out to several weeks, and a built-in cloud cover overlay. It's built for someone whose priority is knowing whether tonight is worth stepping outside for, not for reading a Bz graph at midnight.
The base app is free and ad-supported, available on iOS and Android. A separate Pro version removes those ads for a single one-time purchase, with no subscription required, so paying buys a cleaner interface, not a better forecast. If you're taking one trip and want a single, reliable app that tells you what to do tonight, this is the one to install.
Best for raw data
Free; ad removal subscription $0.99/mo to $9.99/yr
SpaceWeatherLive takes the opposite approach from My Aurora Forecast & Alerts: instead of a likelihood score, it hands you the raw feed. A live Bz and Bt graph, a Kp gauge, solar wind speed, an HMI sunspot image, and a night-vision display mode for reading the screen outdoors without wrecking your eyes all sit on the same dashboard. It also keeps a historical activity calendar going back to 1996, useful if you're checking for patterns rather than just tonight's number.
It's free to download, with ads removable through an in-app subscription running from about $0.99 a month to $9.99 a year. Pick this one over My Aurora Forecast & Alerts if you want the data behind the forecast, not just the forecast itself; a live Bz graph gives a genuine head start on a fast-moving night since Kp is only a rolling three-hour average.
Best for advance trip planning
Free (registration required for full 28-day outlook)
The Glendale App, built by Andy Stables of the Glendale Skye Auroras page and distributed primarily through its own aurora-alerts.uk site rather than a conventional app-store listing, tracks geomagnetic substorms in real time, giving advance warning as an event builds toward its peak, and layers on a 28-day aurora activity outlook for actual trip planning. It covers the UK, Iceland, Scandinavia, the USA, Canada, and Australasia, and only sends an alert once it's dark enough locally for the aurora to actually be visible, cutting out the pointless daytime notifications other apps sometimes send.
The full 28-day outlook requires free registration; there's no paid tier at all. If you're specifically chasing the aurora in one of its covered regions and want a longer planning window than a same-night decision, this is worth running alongside a global app like SpaceWeatherLive.
Best for social aurora chasing
Free + paid tier
Hello Aurora pulls in real-time readings from scientific magnetometer stations across the Arctic, layered on top of the usual Kp and solar wind feeds, plus crowd-sourced spotted-near-you alerts from other users chasing the same night. That social layer is what sets it apart from the more data-driven apps on this list.
The free tier is ad-free but caps photo sharing at three uploads per night. Pro removes that cap, unlocks distance-based alerts that let you set how many kilometers away a substorm or sighting has to be before it notifies you, and adds a 3D view of the aurora oval. If you want to share what you're seeing and know what other chasers nearby are seeing too, this is the one app here built for that.
Best free UK ground-truth check
Free
AuroraWatch UK, run out of Lancaster University's Space and Planetary Physics group, is the odd one out on this list: a four-level, color-coded status system (green, yellow, amber, red) built on UK ground-based magnetometer data rather than the OVATION model everything else here relies on. It's entirely free, with no ads and no in-app purchases, because it's an academic public-service project rather than a commercial one.
It ranks last for one reason: its four-level scale is calibrated specifically for UK geomagnetic activity and stops meaning much once you're chasing aurora somewhere outside its coverage area. If you're anywhere near the UK, it's worth running alongside a commercial app as a free ground-truth check; everyone else should treat it as a curiosity rather than a primary tool.
Match the app to the trip you're taking, not the star rating in the app store. If you're taking one shot at the aurora and want a plain answer, My Aurora Forecast & Alerts is built for exactly that; the likelihood score and multi-week outlook tell you whether booking is worth it, and everything else in the app is optional. If you're a serious chaser who wants the data behind the answer, SpaceWeatherLive earns its keep on the live Bz and solar wind speed feed alone, paired with a regional app, Glendale App or Hello Aurora, if you're specifically chasing the UK, Iceland, Scandinavia, or the Arctic. A global app gives you the big picture; a regional one adds the ground-based detail that actually changes what you do that night.
Astrophotographers should run a commercial app for convenience but check NOAA's own dashboards directly before a shoot, since the 30-minute forecast updates faster than most consumer apps refresh their own map. And if you're near the UK on any given night, run AuroraWatch UK alongside whichever commercial app you pick; it won't help once you're outside its coverage area, but as a free, ad-free, academically-run ground-truth check, it's hard to argue against. No single app wins outright here, because best depends entirely on whether you want a plain answer or the raw data behind it.
None of these apps track the aurora's summer counterpart: noctilucent clouds, the electric-blue high-altitude clouds visible at high latitudes during the bright nights when true aurora hunting is on pause. See noctilucent cloud season for when and where to look while you wait for the sky to darken enough for the aurora forecast apps above to matter again.
Further reading