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Exploring NOAA’s Hidden Gems: New to Me Ionosphere & Aurora Forecast Tools for Ham Radio

 While analyzing the skip path of a a 5-watt QSO I made last week from the San Francisco to Argentina with Project TouCans, I stumbled across a set of NOAA resources that completely changed how I look at ionospheric conditions. From real-time aurora dashboards to animated MUF forecasts and electron flux data, these tools offer hams powerful insights into propagation—and some surprises along the way.

I made a grey line QSO from the campus of City College San Francisco to Argentina with our 5-watt Project TouCans rig last week. Last night, KO6BTY and I found ourselves deep in the rabbit hole of ionospheric conditions. What started as curiosity about the Kp index and whether aurora activity might have influenced the QSO's skip path, led us to discover some powerful NOAA resources. From aurora dashboards and global ionosphere forecasts to animated MUF predictions and GOES electron flux data, these tools give ham radio operators new ways to understand HF propagation, F2 layer behavior, and the science behind those long-distance QSOs.

3D globe visualization showing a green great-circle path representing a QSO between the U.S. and Argentina. The Earth is overlaid with a colored grid indicating F2 layer critical frequencies, with values ranging from below 3 MHz (blue) to above 15 MHz (red) as shown in the legend. The plotted path shows an unrealistic mid-ocean bounce due to the single-skip assumption in the mapping code.
You'll immediatley notice that the skip looks  weird. It jumps out of the ocean a little less than half the distance to Argentina, and then dives back in. No, we're not experimenting with neutrino-driven ham radio. This version of the mapping code assumes that every QSO utilizes a single skip off the F2 layer. That's clearly not the case for this one.

The colored grid overlaid on the Earth indicates the critical frequqency—the maximum frequency radio wave that will be reflected directly back to the Earth instead of escaping into space—of the F2 layer at each location. There's a legend in the lower right hand corner of the map. If you'd like to see the numeric values plotted, that's shown below.

Line graph titled 'FOF2 vs angle • lw2do • 2025-08-27T02:56:12' showing F2 layer critical frequency along a great-circle path. The x-axis is angle along the path in degrees, and the y-axis is FOF2 in MHz. Values rise from about 7.5 MHz, peak above 9 MHz mid-path, then drop sharply to below 5 MHz near 85° angle, indicating steep ionospheric changes approaching Argentina.

You can see in both images that there's a very steep change in the values as the path approaches Argentina. That change is what had KO6BTY and I wondering if the aurora was active that evening.

We don't have anything interesting to report yet, but in the course of our search, we cam upon the following sites:

Aurorasauras


I've written about this site before. It's the best historic, graphical aurora data I've found. The time zone is a little bit annoying in that I'm not sure what time zone it's set for. At present, I just change the time until the grey line is in about the correct place vs my map. Still though, the data is very easy to read, and they have data that goes back more than a few days. Also, the maps feature links to pictures from people photographed  the aurora at that time, so that's kinda cool!

Map of the Americas and Pacific Ocean dated 26 Aug 2025 at 9:00 PM, showing the auroral oval in green over the Southern Ocean near Antarctica, a red line across the southern hemisphere, and the grey line twilight boundary stretching across the Pacific toward the U.S. west coast.

My QSO took place at 7:56 PST, 2:56 UTC at about grey line... whatevs :)

3D globe view centered on the Americas with a bright green line marking the grey line twilight boundary. A pop-up box shows QSO details with station lw2do at 2025-08-27T02:56:12 UTC, signal report 559.

NOAA Aurora Dashboard


This site has great animations as well as predictions of wht the aurora will do on the current day. It also displays recent Kp data. It doesn't go back very far though.

Two aurora forecast maps from NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. Left shows the northern hemisphere with a bright green auroral oval centered over the Arctic, extending into Canada, Greenland, and northern Europe. Right shows the southern hemisphere with a green auroral oval around Antarctica. Both maps include probability scales of aurora from 10% to 90%.


Aurora Animations for the North and South Pole

This is the site that led us to look for more data which is how I stumbled upon the very cool 

Whole Atmosphere Model-Ionosphere Plasmasphere Electrodynamics Forecast Sytem


It has forecasts for the maximum usable RF frequency, (MUF), for the next two days! The forecast data is also animated.


Forecast dashboard with animations for MUF

Electron Flux


We're not using the data from this one yet, but it shows the electron flux arriving at the Earth at the geostationary orbit of the GOES satellites.

Global Ionosphere Forecast dashboard from NOAA SWPC showing four world maps valid at Sep 2 2025 06:00 UTC: Total Electron Content (TEC), Maximum Usable Frequency (MUF), TEC Anomaly, and MUF Anomaly. Maps use color scales to highlight variations, with bright bands and anomalies across equatorial and mid-latitude regions.

Copasetic Flow GloTEC Maps


I almost forgot to mention that this site has an up-to-date map of the F2 layer including hmF2 and foF2. The map uses a Cesium viewer so you can zoom in, out and explore the data.

One more NOAA Resource

The last seven days of Kp index readings can be  found here

Bar charts of 3-hour Kp index readings over the last seven days from four NOAA/SWPC stations: Boulder, Fredericksburg, Estimated Planetary, and College. Most values are green (Kp 0–3), with occasional yellow (Kp 4) and red (Kp 5–6) spikes, especially around August 26.


Wrapping it all up for now...

My unexpected QSO from the U.S. to Argentina with just 5 watts reminded us how dynamic and unpredictable HF propagation can be. We saw F2 layer changes on our generated plots that use NOAA GloTEC data. We wanted to know more. That led us to the NOAA’s ionosphere forecasts, aurora dashboards, and MUF predictions, which gave us fresh insight into what might have shaped that path. While we’re still piecing together the story—aurora activity, electron flux, and F2 layer variability all in play—it’s clear that these NOAA tools are invaluable for hams chasing DX, experimenting with QRP, or just learning more about how the ionosphere really works.



72s and good luck with the F2 layer!




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