Aurora australis over Melbourne, tonight

A natural light display caused by charged particles from the sun colliding with gases in Earth's upper atmosphere. The collisions release energy as glowing light, usually green, pink or red, typically 100 to 300km up.

Check tonight's verdict card above. It's a straight Go/No-Go call built from real-time Kaus, Bz, cloud cover and darkness for your location, updated every 5 minutes.

Face a dark, south-facing horizon, ideally between 10pm and 2am, and check tonight's live verdict for your location so you're not heading out on a quiet night.

Any time it's fully dark, but activity is statistically strongest around local magnetic midnight, roughly 10pm to 2am, when your location rotates into the part of Earth's magnetic field most disturbed by the solar wind. Check tonight's verdict card above for your location's exact dark-sky window.

As a rough guide: Tasmania can pick up faint displays from around Kp 5, Victoria and South Australia usually need Kp 6 to 7, and the mainland further north needs an extreme Kp 8 or 9 storm. We track the Kaus index alongside Kp, a scale tuned for southern-hemisphere visibility that often gives an earlier read on your actual chances than Kp alone.

About an hour. Melbourne's own light pollution washes out all but the strongest storms, so head to Point Nepean or Cape Schanck on the Mornington Peninsula for a dark, south-facing horizon.

Generally a G2 or stronger geomagnetic storm, Kp 6 to 7. Victoria sits further from the pole than Tasmania, so it needs a stronger push before the aurora oval reaches this far north.