Aurora Tonight

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

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Town Tools builds free, public tools for Whitehorse 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

Worth a look tonight

The model and the forecast line up, and the sky should be dark enough. No promises — aurora comes and goes — but it’s a night to look up.

Patchy cloud over the dark hours — gaps are likely.

Overhead chance now

NOAA’s modelled chance of aurora directly overhead

Expected Kp tonight

Planetary activity — higher means a stronger, wider display

Darkest 20:40–07:10

Skies

Night

Dark hours

Expected Kp

Sky

Tue, Oct 13

20:30–07:10

3.7· may reach viewing levels

Patchy

Wed, Oct 14

20:30–07:10

2.7· may reach viewing levels

Cloudy

Thu, Oct 15

20:30–07:20

2.7· may reach viewing levels

Cloudy

If you go out

Get away from streetlights — a short drive out toward Fish Lake, Long Lake or the Takhini valley makes a real difference.

Give your eyes 15 to 20 minutes to adjust, and keep off your phone screen.

Look north and low on the horizon first; a faint grey arch can brighten into colour within minutes.

The hours around midnight are often best, but a strong display can appear any time the sky is dark.

Dress for standing still in the cold — it is colder than walking, and the best shows can take patience.

Worth knowing

Why the Yukon sees the lights

Whitehorse sits at about 61 degrees north, close under the auroral oval — the ring where the northern lights are usually brightest. On a clear, dark night the aurora can appear even when space weather is quiet, which is part of why the Yukon is one of the easier places in the world to catch it.

The other side of the long nights

The same deep-winter darkness that makes late January hard is what makes the aurora possible. Pair this with the daylight tool: as the sun-hours shrink, the hours dark enough for the lights grow.