Keep an eye on the Sun.
Solmate follows the Sun, the solar wind and Earth's magnetic field in near real time, so you can see when a geomagnetic storm is brewing over New Zealand. It's also a place to learn how space weather works, from the Sun all the way to the ground.
Inside the Solmate dashboard
Runs in your browser, or you can install it like an app (handy if you want it on your phone).
L1 > Earth
The one to watch when a storm's on the way. All the key basics in one place, and easy for anyone to follow.
CME Tracker
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in 3D, a list of the recent ones, when they're predicted to reach Earth, and imagery from STEREO-A and NASA's new PUNCH mission.
Solar activity
GOES X-ray flux, coronagraph and SUVI imagery, WSA-Enlil model runs and energetic particles, and alerts for any flares in the past 24 hours.
The Sun now
Check out the sunspot regions and coronal holes facing Earth (and when they will be), and the new filament tracker.
Members only: Extra tools to support real-time operations, geoelectric field models (including direction-aware), plus forecasts for Dst, a local Hp30 for New Zealand, and GICs.
Notable space weather events
Storms, flares and near misses from 1770 to 2024, and what they did here on Earth and beyond. Each one has a timeline, imagery and a 3D replay you can play through.
The nine nights
Nine nights of red aurora, seen from Japan, China and Cook’s Endeavour.
Sep 1859The Carrington Event
The first solar flare anyone ever saw, and the biggest storm on record - telegraphs sparked, and operators were shocked (literally!).
May 1921The railroad storm
Signal towers and telegraph offices caught fire, and aurora was seen from Samoa.
May 1967The radar jamming scare
A radio blackout that was nearly mistaken for Soviet radar jamming.
Aug 1972The sea mines storm
One of the fastest CMEs ever seen, sea mines off the coast of Vietnam detonated.
Mar 1989The Québec blackout
A cascade failure situation collapsed Québec’s grid in about 90 seconds, leaving 6 million people without power.
Jul 2000Bastille Day event
An X5.7 flare and a proton storm that turned spacecraft images to snow.
Oct–Nov 2003The Halloween storms
The biggest flare ever measured, a blackout in Malmö, and an instrument lost at Mars.
Jul 2012The 2012 near miss
A huge eruption that missed Earth by about a week. What if it had hit?
Mar 2015St Patrick’s Day storm
The strongest storm of its solar cycle came from an unassuming flare, with aurora over New Zealand. Proof that size doesn’t always matter!
Sep 2017Double trouble - flares and hurricanes
The cycle’s biggest flares blacked out radio in the middle of the Caribbean hurricanes, cutting off emergency radio traffic when it was needed most.
Feb 2022The Starlink loss
A low level G1 storm warmed the upper atmosphere just enough to drag 38 brand-new Starlink satellites back down to Earth.
May 2024The Gannon storm
A series of CMEs, the first G5 storm since 2003, grid operators watching closely, and aurora seen right across New Zealand.
Compare them all →
See how the storms stack up against each other.
Made in New Zealand, for everyone.
I'm Jen, and I made Solmate to help make the Sun and space weather accessible to everyone, not just the scientists. If something here makes you curious, you've come to the right place!
Solmate pulls together public data from NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, NASA, GFZ Potsdam and GeoNet (plus a few others) and turns it into something you can read at a glance.
Most space weather dashboards are built with the Northern Hemisphere in mind, so Solmate looks at things from down here. That means New Zealand magnetometers, a local version of the Hp30 index, and forecasts of how much the magnetic field over New Zealand is likely to be disturbed. Every forecast also gets checked against what actually happened, so they keep getting better (and so the ones that missed don't get swept under the rug). If you're looking for an aurora dashboard, check out our mates at spottheaurora.co.nz.
Solmate isn't an official warning service, so for official alerts, follow space weather agencies like NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.