Northern lights tonight in Alaska
The northern lights have a new home. This forecast now lives at Alaska Aurora Forecast — the same globe, town verdicts and 3-night outlook on their own site, with a full page for every town. Go to the new site →
Anchorage
…Checking tonight's sky…
The next three nights
Geomagnetic activity (Kp) forecast for the selected town's dark hours. Kp runs 0–9; how much a town needs depends on its magnetic latitude. Nights tagged “outlook” use NOAA’s 27-day outlook where the 3-day forecast doesn’t reach — whole-day values, so treat them rougher.
All 34 towns tonight
- Anchorage…daylight →
- Wasilla…daylight →
- Palmer…daylight →
- Houston…daylight →
- Big Lake…daylight →
- Willow…daylight →
- Talkeetna…daylight →
- Kenai…daylight →
- Soldotna…daylight →
- Homer…daylight →
- Seward…daylight →
- Valdez…daylight →
- Cordova…daylight →
- Glennallen…daylight →
- Fairbanks…daylight →
- Delta Junction…daylight →
- Tok…daylight →
- Juneau…daylight →
- Ketchikan…daylight →
- Sitka…daylight →
- Petersburg…daylight →
- Wrangell…daylight →
- Haines…daylight →
- Skagway…daylight →
- Kodiak…daylight →
- Bethel…daylight →
- Dillingham…daylight →
- King Salmon…daylight →
- Unalaska / Dutch Harbor…daylight →
- Adak…daylight →
- Nome…daylight →
- Kotzebue…daylight →
- Utqiaġvik…daylight →
- Prudhoe Bay / Deadhorse…daylight →
How to read this page
The green band is NOAA's OVATION model of the aurora oval — a ring around the magnetic pole — drawn on a globe tipped so Alaska faces you. When the ring swells south over your town, displays can be overhead; when it only brushes the north, look low on the northern horizon. The pale side of the globe is in daylight, where aurora can't be seen.
Every town's call combines four things: the forecast Kp against what that town needs (a matter of magnetic latitude — Fairbanks needs about Kp 2, Anchorage about 3, Ketchikan about 4), the cloud cover forecast for the dark hours (the spoiler nobody else shows), the town's actual darkness window between astronomical dusk and dawn, and moonlight. A great Kp under solid cloud is still a no.
Honest fine print: aurora forecasting is part science, part luck. The model works from solar wind measured about a million miles out, so the band is drawn for roughly 30–90 minutes ahead, and a "Good" night can still bust while a "Fair" one surprises you. Treat the verdict as odds, not a promise — and if the sky is clear and you're already up, look north anyway.
Data: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (OVATION model and Kp forecast) and the National Weather Service (cloud cover). Darkness and times computed with the same NOAA solar math as the rest of this site. All times Alaska Time.