OVATION Prime Real-Time

The OVATION Prime Real-Time (OPRT) tool is a real-time forecast and nowcast model of auroral power and is a prototype implementation of the work by Newell et al (2009). OPRT is run every 5 minutes and the web display automatically refreshes. The model output below represents hemispheric power in Geomagnetic coordinates, oriented with local noon at the top. Thus, the top half of each polar plot represents magnetic longitudes in daylight and the bottom half represents longitudes in darkness.

Left column:Nowcast of auroral power
Right column:Forecast of auroral power
Top row:Northern polar cap
Bottom row:Southern polar cap

The time (GMT) and total power in Gigawatts (GW) of the latest model run are listed on the top of each plot.

North Nowcast
North Nowcast
North Forecast
North Forecast
South Nowcast
South Nowcast
South Forecast
South Forecast

Solar wind observations from the ACE spacecraft are retrieved from NOAA/SWPC, then time shifted to the Earth's magnetopause and used to drive this OPRT prototype. Time shifting is computed using the "half-way-in-between" method in the same style as that used to prepare the OMNI2 solar wind dataset. From Newell et al, 2009, an empirically derived function (least squares), which is proportional to the dayside magnetic merging rate (Newell et al., 2007) is then used to produce maps of energy fluxes for 4 auroral types: monoenergetic, broadband, diffuse, and ion. These 4 auroral types are combined to produce the above maps of total auroral power.

Data, Meta Record

Open Source Model on Source Forge

Run on Demand at JHU/APL

Forecast on SWPC Test Bed

Event Movies:

References (chronological):

  • Machol, J. L., J. C. Green, R. J. Redmon, R. A. Viereck, and P. T. Newell (2012), Evaluation of OVATION Prime as a forecast model for visible aurorae, Space Weather, 10, S03005, doi:10.1029/2011SW000746.
  • Newell, P.T., T. Sotirelis, and S. Wing (2010), Seasonal variations in diffuse, monoenergetic, and broadband aurora, J. Geophys. Res., 115, A03216, doi:10.1029/2009JA014805.
  • Newell, P.T., T. Sotirelis, and S. Wing (2009), Diffuse, monoenergetic, and broadband aurora: The global precipitation budget, J. Geophys. Res., 114, A09207, 216, doi:10.1029/2009JA014326.
  • Newell, P.T., T. Sotirelis, K. Liou, C.‐I. Meng, and F.J. Rich (2007), A nearly universal solar wind‐magnetosphere coupling function inferred from 10 magnetospheric state variables, J. Geophys. Res., 112, A01206, doi:10.1029/2006JA012015.

Contact: This service is maintained by Rob Redmon and you may use the email at the bottom right to send feedback or questions.