Where and When to See the Northern Lights

Few sights in nature are as unforgettable as the northern lights: curtains of green light that ripple across a dark winter sky, sometimes edged with pink or violet. Their scientific name is the aurora borealis, and seeing them takes a little planning. Here is what causes them, when to look, and where on Earth your chances are best, with puzzles from each place.

What makes the sky glow

The Sun constantly sends out a stream of charged particles called the solar wind. When these particles reach Earth, our planet’s magnetic field guides many of them towards the polar regions. There, high in the atmosphere, they collide with atoms of oxygen and nitrogen and make them give off light, much like the gas in a neon sign.

The colour depends on the gas and on the height. Oxygen about 100 to 250 kilometres up gives the familiar green, while oxygen even higher can glow red. Nitrogen adds touches of blue and purple, often along the lower edge of a bright display. In the Southern Hemisphere the same thing happens around the South Pole, where the lights are called the aurora australis, or southern lights.

When to look

Auroras happen all year round, but you need darkness to see them. In the far north the summer nights are too bright, so the season runs roughly from September to early April. Many aurora watchers like the weeks around the equinoxes in September and March, when the nights are long but not yet bitterly cold.

The lights are often strongest in the hours around midnight, although they can appear at any time after dark. Two other things matter just as much: a clear sky, and distance from town lights. A display that is faint from a brightly lit street can be breathtaking from a dark lakeshore a few kilometres away. Aurora forecasts, based on measurements of the solar wind, tell you when activity is likely to be high.

The northern lights month by month

• September and October: the season begins. The nights are already long, lakes are not yet frozen, so the lights are often reflected in the water, and it is rarely bitterly cold.
• November to January: the darkest months. In Tromsø and Murmansk the sun does not rise at all for several weeks around the winter solstice. December has the longest nights, but coasts such as Lofoten and southern Iceland are often cloudy, so drier inland places like Abisko, Finnish Lapland and Yellowknife are a safer bet.
• February and March: often the clearest and most popular months, with deep snow, longer days for sightseeing and the active weeks around the March equinox.
• April to August: the nights in the far north are too light, so the aurora is very hard or impossible to see there.

The best places to see the northern lights

Auroras are most frequent under the auroral oval, a ring around the magnetic North Pole that passes over northern Scandinavia, Iceland, northern Russia, Alaska and northern Canada. These places lie close to it, and each of them is in our puzzles.

Tromsø and the Lofoten Islands, Norway

Tromsø, about 350 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, is one of the most popular aurora destinations in the world, with fjords and mountains all around the city. From late November to mid-January the sun does not rise there at all. Further south-west, the Lofoten Islands rise from the sea in a wall of sharp peaks, and thanks to the Gulf Stream their winters are surprisingly mild.

Abisko, Sweden

Abisko, in Swedish Lapland, lies in a rain shadow behind the mountains, so its sky is clear more often than elsewhere in the region. A chairlift carries visitors up Mount Nuolja to an aurora sky station high above the valley.

Finnish Lapland

In the north of Finland the aurora can be seen on about 200 nights a year. The Finnish word for it, revontulet, means “fox fires”, from an old tale of a fire fox whose tail sweeps the snow and sends sparks into the sky.

Iceland

Iceland lies right beneath the auroral zone, and on a clear night the lights can appear almost anywhere outside the towns. Favourite spots include Kirkjufell, the steep “Church Mountain” on the Snæfellsnes peninsula, and the dark lava fields around Lake Mývatn in the north.

Yellowknife and northern Canada

Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories, stands on the shore of Great Slave Lake directly under the auroral oval. Its flat land and dry, clear winters make it one of the best places in North America to watch the sky. A large part of Canada lies under the oval, so the lights also dance over the lakes and mountains of the Yukon and northern Quebec.

Fairbanks, Alaska

Fairbanks, in the interior of Alaska, lies under the auroral oval, and its cold, dry winters bring many clear nights. It is the best-known place in the United States to see the northern lights, and on active nights the aurora can fill the whole sky.

Naryan-Mar, Russia

In Russia’s far north, the small town of Naryan-Mar stands on the Pechora River in the tundra of the Nenets region, not far from the Barents Sea. When an aurora is directly overhead, its rays seem to meet at a single point, a shape known as a corona.

Murmansk and Teriberka, Russia

Murmansk, on the Kola Peninsula, is the largest city north of the Arctic Circle, and from early December to mid-January the sun does not rise there. Many visitors drive two to three hours to Teriberka, a village on the coast of the Barents Sea, to watch the lights over the sea far from city lights.

Scotland

Scotland is the easiest place in Britain to see the northern lights. They appear several times a year, most often from September to March, and are best seen from the far north and the islands: Shetland, Orkney, Caithness and the Isle of Skye, where there is little light at night. In Shetland the lights are called the “mirrie dancers”. Look towards the northern horizon on a clear night when the forecast shows a Kp index of 5 or more; during strong storms, such as in May 2024, the sky can glow pink and green even over the Highlands and the cities of the south.

Greenland

Almost all of Greenland lies under the auroral oval, so from September to April the lights can be seen on many clear nights, even from the towns. Nuuk, the capital, has flights from Copenhagen and Reykjavík, Kangerlussuaq inland is known for its dry, stable weather and clear skies, and tiny villages such as Kulusuk on the east coast are among the darkest places to watch. An old Greenlandic story says the lights are the spirits of the dead playing ball with a walrus skull.

The southern lights

The northern lights have a twin in the south: the aurora australis, or southern lights, which circles the South Pole in the same way. It is seen best from Tasmania, the South Island of New Zealand and Antarctica, usually as a pink and green glow low over the southern horizon. Good places are the south coast of Tasmania, Lake Tekapo in the Aoraki Mackenzie Dark Sky Reserve and Stewart Island, whose Māori name, Rakiura, is often translated as “glowing skies”. The best season is the southern winter, from March to September, when the nights are long. A camera often shows the colours more strongly than the eye.

Tips for your first aurora night

• Dress for the cold: you may stand outside for hours, often well below freezing.
• Give your eyes 15 to 20 minutes to adjust to the dark, and keep your phone screen dim.
• A faint aurora can look almost grey to the eye, but a camera on a tripod with a long exposure shows its colours.
• Be patient: displays often come in waves, with quiet spells in between.

How to read an aurora forecast

Aurora forecasts often use the Kp index, a scale from 0 to 9 that shows how disturbed Earth’s magnetic field is. Right under the auroral oval, in places such as Tromsø, Abisko or Yellowknife, even a Kp of 1 to 3 can bring a good show. The higher the number, the further south the lights reach: around Kp 5 they can appear over northern Scotland and the northern United States, and during rare great storms, such as the one in May 2024, they were seen as far south as southern Europe and Mexico. Always check the cloud forecast too: without a clear sky, even a strong aurora stays hidden.

Questions people often ask

Can you see the northern lights in December?

Yes. December is one of the darkest months in the far north, so there are many hours of darkness to watch the sky. The best bets are places with drier weather, such as Abisko, Finnish Lapland around Rovaniemi and Yellowknife, as well as Tromsø, Iceland and Murmansk on clear nights. Many people combine the trip with Christmas markets and snowy landscapes.

What is the closest place to see the northern lights?

It depends on where you live. From most of Europe, the nearest reliable places are northern Norway, Swedish and Finnish Lapland and Iceland, a few hours’ flight away. In Britain, northern Scotland and Shetland see the aurora on active nights. In North America, Alaska and northern Canada are best, and on strong nights the lights reach northern states such as Minnesota, Michigan and Maine.

What is the best month to see the northern lights?

There is no single best month: any clear, dark night from September to March can bring an aurora. February and March are often the clearest, the weeks around the September and March equinoxes tend to be more active, and December has the longest nights.

See the lights in puzzles

If a trip north is not on your calendar this winter, you can still watch the sky glow piece by piece. All our aurora puzzles, from Iceland and Norway to Alaska, Greenland, Scotland and Russia, and even the southern lights over New Zealand and Tasmania, are together on the Northern Lights page.