Aurora Advisor
Concept
A decision tool that answers a specific question for southern-hemisphere aurora observers: should I drive an hour to a dark site tonight, or stay home? The answer is rarely either the space-weather forecast alone (the sky might be clouded over) or the weather alone (the geomagnetic field might be quiet) — it’s the join of the two, weighted by how much effort the trip actually costs.
The advisor consumes the real-time solar wind feed, watches for the substorm triggers that turn a quiet aurora into a visible one, pulls a local cloud-cover and moon-phase forecast, and folds everything into a single Go/No-Go score.
Architecture
Bz, Kp, hemispheric power"] SUB["Substorm Detector
Bz drop + HPI jump triggers"] WX["Local Forecast
cloud cover · moon phase · transparency"] TRIP["Trip Cost Model
drive time · site elevation"] SCORE["Go/No-Go Score
weighted join"] OUT["Notification
actionable for tonight"] SW --> SUB SUB --> SCORE WX --> SCORE TRIP --> SCORE SCORE --> OUT
The trip-cost branch is what separates this from a generic space-weather dashboard: a borderline Kp-5 event on a clear, moonless night close to home is a different call than the same event on a cloudy night two hours away.