Methodology
Aurora Forecast Methodology
GreenHalos keeps forecast precision proportional to the available evidence.
Source version: GreenHalos Master Specification 1.0 ·
Four forecast horizons
The same label is never stretched across scientifically different time horizons.
- Live and approximately 30–90 minutes: NOAA OVATION auroral activity.
- Tonight and tomorrow: geomagnetic activity, darkness and cloud context.
- Days 1–3: NOAA Kp and geomagnetic forecasts.
- Days 4–10: a lower-confidence geomagnetic outlook, without an exact future oval.
Viewing Potential
The GreenHalos Viewing Potential combines auroral activity, darkness, cloud cover, moonlight and data quality. It is an explanatory index, not an observed success rate, guarantee or official probability.
Every factor is shown separately. Missing cloud data is not treated as clear sky. Light pollution and terrain are not included in the launch score and remain user considerations.
Source freshness
Current-data labels distinguish live, recent, stale, invalid and unavailable states. A stale source keeps its real timestamp and loses any live label. Static educational copy is still useful when a live layer is unavailable.