Alaska · 8 towns compared
Northern lights in Alaska: tonight’s chance
In Alaska the question is rarely whether the oval is close enough: it is whether the sky is dark and clear.
Tonight at Fairbanks, AK
…
Reading the SWPC Kp forecast and the cloud forecast…
| Kp forecast during the dark hours | not yet forecast |
|---|---|
| Kp needed here | 0.4 |
| Cloud cover in the dark hours | loading |
| Dark sky (Sun 18° down) | 9:18 PM to 5:56 AM AKDT |
| Moon | 14% lit |
| Right now, OVATION (30 to 90 min) | loading or unavailable |
| Magnetic latitude (AACGM) | 65.2° |
Hour by hour, AKDT
8 PM
Kp –
– ☁
No
9 PM
Kp –
– ☁
No
10 PM
Kp –
– ☁
No
11 PM
Kp –
– ☁
No
12 AM
Kp –
– ☁
No
1 AM
Kp –
– ☁
No
2 AM
Kp –
– ☁
No
3 AM
Kp –
– ☁
No
4 AM
Kp –
– ☁
No
5 AM
Kp –
– ☁
No
6 AM
Kp –
– ☁
No
Rules checked · Built by Radif Partners · How the answer works
- Kp to see it from Fairbanks
- 0.4
- Storm level needed
- no storm
- Kp for aurora overhead
- 0.4
- Most clear dark hours
- January
Alaska is the one US state that sits under the auroral oval rather than beside it. Fairbanks, at 65.2 degrees magnetic latitude, needs about Kp 0.4, so on most clear dark nights there is something to see; Anchorage, at 61.1 degrees, needs about Kp 2.4, still below storm level; and on the North Slope, Utqiaġvik sits at 70.5 degrees, so far north of the oval's usual edge that quiet aurora can appear in its southern sky. What limits Alaska is light. In Fairbanks the Sun never gets 18 degrees below the horizon in April, May, June, July and August, and cloud cover peaks in July. The tool opens on Fairbanks; type your own town or a ZIP code for tonight's hours and answer.
Under the oval, not beside it
Everywhere else on this site, a higher Kp means better odds. In Alaska the relationship bends. When the oval expands during a storm it can slide south of the Interior, so that Fairbanks watches the brightest arcs in its southern sky while Anchorage gets them overhead. On a quiet night the reverse happens: the oval contracts toward the Brooks Range and the North Slope, and Fairbanks sees it in the north. Utqiaġvik, at 70.5 degrees magnetic latitude, is poleward of the oval's quiet position, which is why the tool still shows a Kp needed of 0.0 there while the best displays may sit to its south.
The University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute has studied the aurora from the Interior for decades, and its Poker Flat Research Range north of Fairbanks launches rockets into it. The reason is the same one that makes the region good for watching: the oval passes overhead on most nights.
Four regions, four skies
The Interior, from Fairbanks to the Yukon border, is dry and cold in winter, with long clear spells under high pressure. Southcentral, around Anchorage and the Mat-Su valleys, gets more maritime cloud and city glow. The Southeast panhandle, Juneau and Ketchikan, is a temperate rainforest: the cloud amount there stays high in every month of the NASA POWER averages, and clear nights are the real constraint. The North Slope and the west coast, Utqiaġvik, Kotzebue and Nome, have the darkest winters of all, with weeks of polar night around the December solstice.
How dark, how clear: one town, one month
Hours of full darkness on the 15th
4.6 h
| Dark sky | 11:29 PM to 4:03 AM |
| Including nautical twilight | 7.2 h |
| Mean cloud amount (NASA POWER) | 72% |
| Clear dark hours on an average night | 1.3 h |
Computed for 2027; the hours move by a few minutes from one year to the next.
Summer: the aurora is there, the dark is not
From late April to mid-August the Interior has no astronomical night, and around the June solstice not even nautical twilight. The oval keeps shining, but against a sky that is too bright. Visitors who come for the midnight sun and hope for aurora on the same trip are usually disappointed, as SWPC itself warns. The first dark nights return in the second half of August, when the September equinox, with its tendency toward geomagnetic activity, is close. The Fairbanks page, the Anchorage page and the Juneau page give the dark hours and clouds month by month.
Kp needed across Alaska
| Town | Magnetic latitude | Kp to see it | Kp overhead | Storm level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Utqiaġvik | 70.5° | 0.0 | 0.0 | no storm |
| Fairbanks | 65.2° | 0.4 | 0.4 | no storm |
| Kotzebue | 65.1° | 0.4 | 0.4 | no storm |
| Nome | 62.3° | 1.9 | 1.9 | no storm |
| Anchorage | 61.1° | 2.4 | 2.4 | no storm |
| Juneau | 61.0° | 2.5 | 2.5 | no storm |
| Bethel | 58.8° | 3.6 | 3.6 | no storm |
| Ketchikan | 58.6° | 3.7 | 3.7 | no storm |
Darkness and clouds by month in Fairbanks
| Month | Dark hours | Dark sky, 15th | Mean cloud | Clear dark hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 12.3 h | 6:51 PM to 7:08 AM | 55% | 5.5 h |
| February | 9.8 h | 8:08 PM to 5:59 AM | 59% | 4.0 h |
| March | 6.5 h | 10:44 PM to 5:12 AM | 51% | 3.2 h |
| April | none | – | 59% | 0.0 h |
| May | none | – | 70% | 0.0 h |
| June | none | – | 73% | 0.0 h |
| July | none | – | 77% | 0.0 h |
| August | none | – | 75% | 0.0 h |
| September | 4.6 h | 11:29 PM to 4:03 AM | 72% | 1.3 h |
| October | 8.8 h | 9:12 PM to 6:01 AM | 77% | 2.0 h |
| November | 11.6 h | 6:46 PM to 6:25 AM | 67% | 3.9 h |
| December | 13.0 h | 6:17 PM to 7:15 AM | 59% | 5.3 h |