Will you see the aurora tonight?
Most aurora apps show you a number and leave you to work out what it means. GLOW answers the actual question — can I see it, tonight, from here?
Ask to be a testerThe Play test isn't open yet — email me and I'll add you the moment it is.
Why your location changes everything
The auroral oval is centred on the geomagnetic pole, over northern Canada — not the geographic one. That is why Scotland sees far more aurora than places on the same latitude in Russia, and why Reykjavík sits under the oval while somewhere further north might not.
GLOW converts your coordinates to geomagnetic latitude and compares them against how far the oval currently reaches. The Kp each place needs varies more than people expect:
| Place | Latitude | Geomagnetic | Kp needed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reykjavík | 64.15° | 68.9° | any |
| Tromsø | 69.65° | 67.5° | any |
| Inverness | 57.48° | 59.8° | Kp 1.4 |
| Edinburgh | 55.95° | 58.1° | Kp 2.2 |
| Dublin | 53.35° | 56.1° | Kp 3.2 |
| London | 51.51° | 53.4° | Kp 4.5 |
| Guernsey | 49.45° | 51.8° | Kp 5.3 |
| Paris | 48.86° | 50.4° | Kp 5.9 |
Calculated live on this page with the same model the app uses — an IGRF dipole approximation and NOAA's Kp-to-oval-boundary table.
What it looks like
Free
- Live Kp with a plain-English verdict for your location
- Chance of aurora overhead, from NOAA's OVATION nowcast
- Three-day forecast marked against what you need
- Alerts that only fire when it's dark and actually visible
- No ads, no account, no tracking
GLOW Pro one payment
- Unlimited saved locations
- Live solar wind — Bz, speed and field strength
- The aurora map, with your location on it
- Home screen widget
- Quiet hours and alerts for every location
No subscription. Buy it once, keep it.
Help test it — 15 people needed
Before Google will let anyone install GLOW, it needs a group of testers to have had it on their phone for two weeks. That's genuinely the whole ask: install it, and open it now and again.
- Tap the button below on the phone you'll use.
- Accept the invitation, then install GLOW from the Play Store.
- Open it occasionally over the next fortnight. Tell me anything that looks wrong.
It has to be the Google account your phone's Play Store is signed in to — often not the address people would normally email you at.
Email me to be addedWhere the data comes from
Everything is from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the official US source for space weather — public domain and updated continuously.
No forecast can promise an aurora. Space weather changes fast, cloud gets in the way, and a bright moon washes out a weak display. GLOW tells you when conditions are worth going outside for and, just as usefully, when they aren't.
GLOW collects nothing about you and has no server — alerts are worked out on your own device. Privacy policy.