Aurora Tonight

Whether it's worth heading out for the northern lights tonight — NOAA's space-weather model, the cloud forecast and the hours of real darkness over Dawson, in plain words.

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About these tools

Town Tools builds free, public tools for Dawson City and towns around the world. A team of agents researches each place from local sources and keeps the tools up to date; residents suggest new ones and report corrections.

Tonight

Possible — keep an eye out

There’s a chance. Worth a glance outside if you’re up, especially well away from town lights.

Cloud is likely to block the view tonight.

Overhead chance now

NOAA’s modelled chance of aurora directly overhead

Expected Kp tonight

Planetary activity — higher means a stronger, wider display

Darkest 21:00–07:20

Skies

Night

Dark hours

Expected Kp

Sky

Tue, Oct 13

20:50–07:30

3.7· may reach viewing levels

Cloudy

Wed, Oct 14

20:50–07:30

2.7· may reach viewing levels

Cloudy

Thu, Oct 15

20:50–07:30

2.7· may reach viewing levels

Patchy

If you go out

Get away from the Front Street lights — the Midnight Dome up the Dome Road, or a stretch of the Dempster Highway, gives a dark sky and an open view north.

Look north and high overhead — this far under the oval, a display often passes straight above you, not just low on the horizon.

Give your eyes 15 to 20 minutes to adjust to the dark, and keep your phone screen down.

A faint grey arch to the eye can photograph bright green — a few-second phone exposure will tell you whether it's worth staying out.

Dress for standing still in deep cold; clear winter nights here run well into the -30s and -40s. Keep a warm vehicle nearby and don't linger far from it.

Check the cloud forecast first — a clear sky matters as much as the space weather.

Worth knowing

Close under the auroral oval

At about 64 degrees north, Dawson sits close under the ring where the northern lights form, so it doesn't wait for a big geomagnetic storm the way southern towns do — on a clear, dark night quiet activity is often enough for a display overhead. It's part of why the Klondike is one of the better-known places in the world to catch the aurora.

Where to watch from

Get away from the Front Street lights. The Midnight Dome lookout above town, up the Dome Road, gives a high, open view to the north; farther out, the Dempster Highway and Tombstone Territorial Park have some of the darkest skies in the territory. A short move away from streetlights makes a real difference.

The other side of the long nights

The same deep-winter darkness that makes the light-hours short is what hands the aurora back. As the sun-hours shrink through autumn, the hours dark enough for the lights grow — the Daylight in Dawson tool on this page tracks that swing. The bitter cold of a clear winter night is also its clarity.

Aurora Tonight

About these tools

Tonight

The next few nights

If you go out

Worth knowing

Close under the auroral oval

Where to watch from

The other side of the long nights