Evaluation of OVATION Prime as a forecast model for visible aurorae

Abstract

This study evaluates the ability of the OVATION Prime auroral precipitation model to provide operational forecasts of the visible aurora. An operational implementation would primarily provide the general public with some guidance for viewing the aurora. We evaluate the likelihood that if aurorae are predicted to be visible at a location, they will be seen there within the hour. Nighttime model forecasts were validated with Polar Ultraviolet Imager data for Kp ≥ 3 and for the years 1997 and 1998. The overall forecasts for a visible aurora to occur or to not occur were correct 77% of the time. The most important prediction for public auroral viewing is that the visible aurora will occur, and these forecasts were correct 86% of the time.

Space weather conditions during the Galaxy 15 spacecraft anomaly

“…Figure shows the modeled auroral power at three different times on 5 April 2010, and overlaid are the locations of the Galaxy 15 magnetic footprint at 100 km altitude using the Tsyganenko storm time model (TS05) [ Tsyganenko and Sitnov , ]. The auroral results were calculated using the Oval Variation, Assessment, Tracking, Intensity, and Online Nowcasting (OVATION) Prime Real‐Time model [ Machol et al , ], which is a real‐time forecast and nowcast model of auroral power and is an operational implementation of the work by Newell et al []. The model output in the figure represents auroral power density in geomagnetic coordinates, oriented with local noon at the top and the magnetic footprint of Galaxy 15 is shown as the symbol “G15.” The OVATION empirical model is based on a statistical relationship between the solar wind input drivers and the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellite ion and electron data (30 eV–30 keV) observations, with the electrons extrapolated to 50 keV and ions to 100 keV.…”

Aurorasaurus Database of Real‐Time, Crowd‐Sourced Aurora Data for Space Weather Research

“…Figure shows the distribution of Aurorasaurus data collected in 2015, grouped by latitude differences between Aurorasaurus data (| ϕ o b s |) and SWPC view lines ( ) into 0.5° bins. The accuracy is calculated using a statistical technique suggested by Machol et al (), ACC = ( TP + TN)/ R where TP is the total number of true positive reports that fall within, TN is the total number of true negative reports that fall outside of the view line, R is the total number of reports. This equation yields an accuracy (ACC) of approximately 50.3% for the SWPC view line.…”

Satellite‐beacon Ionospheric‐scintillation Global Model of the upper Atmosphere (SIGMA) II: Inverse modeling with high‐latitude observations to deduce irregularity physics

“…Auxiliary data were obtained from the ISR at Tromsø, a riometer at South Pole, Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and Polar‐orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES), and SuperDARN radars in both hemispheres. We use auroral oval observations from Special Sensor Ultraviolet Spectrographic Imager (SSUSI) instrument on the DMSP satellites http://ssusi.jhuapl.edu/ [ Paxton et al , ; Zhang and Paxton , ] and OVATION Prime plots based on the POES data [ Newell et al , , ; Machol et al , ]. The details of how OVATION Prime plots are produced by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) can be found at the National Geophysical Data Center website: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/ovation_prime/.…”