Will I see the northern lights tonight?

It depends on three things at once: a dark sky, a clear sky and auroras strong enough for where you are. Pick your place above: we combine NOAA's Kp forecast with MET Norway's hour-by-hour cloud forecast and the sun and moon, and give you the best hour tonight.

Less than most guides say, if you're far enough north. Our calibration against the Finnish Meteorological Institute's records puts it at about Kp 1 in Tromsø, Kp 1.3 at Kilpisjärvi, Kp 2.3 in Reykjavík, Kp 2.4 in Rovaniemi and Kp 5.3 in Helsinki. Every place page shows its own number; the Kp page lists all of them.

In the far north the season runs from late August to mid-April, whenever nights are dark. Clear skies decide most of it: inland Lapland, Swedish Lapland, interior Alaska and northern Canada get more clear nights than the coast. See the best places by month.

Plan at least 3–4 nights. In 2015–2025, a 4-night stay in Abisko in January had at least one good night 86% of the time; a single night only 42%. Try your own dates in the trip odds calculator.

They are estimates from real history, not promises. The model was tuned on 4802 clear, dark nights at FMI weather stations and reproduces FMI's own statistics (3 nights in 4 in northern Lapland, every second night in Sodankylä, about once a month in Helsinki). How it works shows every number.