Can you see the northern lights tonight?
Here's the honest answer for right now — and, once you tell us where you are, for your exact spot. Aurora is never guaranteed; what we can do is tell you whether the odds are worth the drive.
Tonight at your location
No account. The maths runs in your browser; only a coarse, ~1 km-rounded position is sent to fetch your cloud forecast, and we never store it. How we handle location.
How to read tonight's odds
Start with the status above: what the sky is doing right now — quiet, elevated but below storm level, storm-favourable solar wind arriving, or a storm underway. Below it, NOAA's own notices sit in three separate rows: a watch (a forecast for coming UTC days — not an observed storm), a warning (what NOAA expects within a stated window) and an observed alert (a threshold that was reached). They are never merged, and a quiet-looking row does not cancel another. How to read them → Then your location estimate combines four things:
- Your geomagnetic latitude vs the Kp on offer. The further you are from the auroral oval, the higher the Kp you need. We tell you the number.
- Darkness. Aurora is there in twilight but you won't see it — we compute when the sky is genuinely dark (sun below −12°) at your spot.
- The moon. A bright moon washes out faint aurora. It's a note, not a dealbreaker.
- Clouds. The best storm in a decade is invisible under an overcast sky.
Even on a "no" night, we tell you what you would need — so you know what to watch for. Full viewing guide →