Northern lights, fog, red skies, wildlife and bioluminescence: Zoom Alerts combines all the relevant data sources and gives you one simple answer: should I grab my camera tonight?
Available in the Netherlands and most of Europe · in English and Dutch.
The app is actively developed by a photographer, for photographers. Your feedback and experiences directly help make Zoom Alerts better.
The Photography meter
Calculated from the odds of northern lights, fog, red skies, bioluminescence and special wildlife, weighted by cloud cover, precipitation, wind and visibility.
Above 70: "Great night for photography." Below 30: "A tough night." No false promises, just a sober, data-driven assessment.
Set a threshold and your phone buzzes when conditions look good. No spam: nature doesn't keep office hours.
"Had the app installed for a while now and it has already earned me a few great photo moments. Ground fog once, a kingfisher in the park and noctilucent clouds. How great is that?! And no, not everything pans out exactly, but Zoom Alerts honestly gives you the percentages. With a bit of luck this app gets you the most beautiful shots!"
New since launch
The Wildlife tab is now called Nature and also shows fungi, across Europe. Choose which groups you see, from birds to mushrooms, and find familiar species such as deer, fox and butterflies.
Model images for all of Europe, with extra detail around the Netherlands: total, high, mid and low, up to 24 hours ahead. The Red sky layer shows where the cloud mix favours a colourful sky.
For a day, a week or until a date you choose. Urgent alerts stay quiet too, and afterwards they switch back on by themselves. Also new: rain 24 hours and storms 12 hours ahead.
Five phenomena, one app
No more hopping between four apps and three websites. The aurora odds in Lapland are different from those in the Low Countries: Zoom Alerts knows, and factors it in. And the app now works anywhere in Europe, in English and Dutch.
Real-time solar wind data from NOAA, the Ovation model and hourly local cloud cover. Look three nights ahead with viewing odds, clouds and storm probability per night. Plus moon phase, meteor showers and noctilucent clouds.
Fog probability by type, a red-sky score built from fifteen factors, golden and blue hour, and a thunderstorm map that looks ahead hour by hour up to twelve hours: where will the showers be, and where does the sky turn photogenic? All filtered through a photographer's eyes.
Wildlife and fungi recently spotted around your location: via waarneming.nl in the Netherlands and the international GBIF network across the rest of Europe. Choose your groups, search and keep your favourites.
The magical blue glow of bioluminescent plankton, calculated from water temperature, moon phase, wind and tide. Including sightings reported by other users.
Eight maps behind one button: a sharp cloud map per layer with Red sky, rain radar with a forecast up to 24 hours, a fog map with visibility and forecast, the hour-by-hour thunderstorm map, light pollution in the original atlas colors, a sun & moon compass with an AR view and live sightings of northern lights and bioluminescence. Find the right time window and the right spot.
At a glance
| Feature | What you see | Outlook & coverage |
|---|---|---|
| Aurora | Viewing chance from live solar wind and Kp, latitude-aware | 3 nights ahead · all of Europe |
| Fog | Chance per type (radiation, valley, evaporation, advection) plus measured visibility | Up to 12 hours ahead · all of Europe |
| Thunderstorms | Showers, storm setup and photogenic structure | Hourly up to 12 hours ahead · all of Europe |
| Rain | Real radar and a seamless model forecast | Up to 24 hours ahead · all of Europe |
| Clouds | Total, high, mid and low, plus the Red sky layer | Up to 24 hours ahead · all of Europe |
| Red skies | A score for every sunrise and sunset, with a clear-horizon check | Your location |
| Milky Way & night | Darkness, moon phase and light pollution in atlas colors | Tonight · all of Europe |
| Sea sparkle | Bloom chance based on seawater temperature | Tonight · European coast |
| Noctilucent clouds & meteors | NLC signals in season and the shower calendar | Tonight · everywhere |
| Nature | Recent sightings of wildlife and fungi near you | Live · all of Europe |
| AR compass | Sun and moon paths drawn through your camera | Any moment · everywhere |
| Alerts | Push when chances look good, with thresholds, quiet hours and a pause button | Automatic · your location |
| Camera advice | Suggested settings per phenomenon | With every chance |
Under the hood
KNMI stations and the European METAR network, yr.no for forecasts, NOAA for aurora, Rijkswaterstaat and Copernicus Marine for water and tides, waarneming.nl and GBIF for wildlife and fungi.
An automated pipeline collects all the data (weather and aurora up to every hour) and stores it in a caching layer. The app stays fast, even on a weak connection.
Sun and moon calculated astronomically, fog from multiple meteorological parameters, red skies from fifteen factors. No simplistic if-then rules.
Zoom Alerts is on the App Store and Google Play across most of Europe. It is under active development: since launch it gained forward-looking maps for all of Europe, fungi in the Nature tab, a pause button for alerts and full bilingual support, driven by what users report. Do tell us what you run into in the field.
Available in the Netherlands and most of Europe · in English and Dutch.
Make sure you never wake up feeling you missed something again.
Zoom Alerts