noaa-aurora

Will the northern (or southern) lights be shining tonight?

Downloads space weather information from NOAA related to aurora activity.

Background

From Wikipedia:

The K-index quantifies disturbances in the horizontal component of earth's magnetic field with an integer in the range 0–9 with 1 being calm and 5 or more indicating a geomagnetic storm.

As such, the K-index is a good predictor of aurora activity.

The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center produces forecasts and near real-time measurements of the K-index.

To determine the minimum K-index at which the aurora can be expected to be visible in your area, refer to the following maps:

Dependencies:

• tzlocal

Scripts:

• noaa_k_index.py: Contains classes to download and parse K-index forecast and observation data.
• noaa_aurora.py: Example script demonstrating how to use K-index data.
• noaa_data_source.py: Manages periodic downloading of files from NOAA.gov.

Usage:

Print the maximum expected K-index values for tonight and tomorrow night, as well as the maximum value observed in the past hour:

$ python3 noaa_aurora.py
Maximum Planetary K-Index:
Tonight: 3  Tomorrow: 2  Recently: 3.00

Assuming I'm at a latitude where the K-index must be 5 or greater to view the aurora, is it likely to be visible tonight?:

$ python3 noaa_aurora.py -k 5 -f visible_tonight
Not visible tonight.