Northern lights in Buffalo: tonight’s chance

Between two lakes

Buffalo sits at the eastern tip of Lake Erie, where the Niagara River carries its water north to Lake Ontario. For the aurora, the two lakes play opposite roles. Lake Ontario, to the north, offers what a watcher wants: a flat, dark horizon over water in the direction of the oval. Lake Erie, to the west and southwest, is the source of the clouds. In late autumn and early winter, when the lake is still warm and the air above it cold, lake-effect bands can cover the city for days. That is why December reaches 85% cloud amount in the NASA POWER averages, and why the months with the most clear dark hours are those before the snow season.

Facing Ontario

From the south shore of Lake Ontario, the view north crosses about 50 km of water toward the Canadian shore, where the lights of Toronto and its suburbs glow on the horizon to the northwest. A storm aurora sits above that glow; picking a spot that puts the city lights off to one side, toward the east along the lake plain, gives a darker northern sky. The lake plain is farmland and orchards, with few lights between the shore and the Erie Canal towns.

Niagara's own light

The falls are lit at night and the cities around them glow; along the Niagara River the northern sky is brighter than the farmland a few miles east. Moving along the lake plain toward Olcott or the Lakeside area puts that light to the west and leaves a darker horizon to the north.

A storm-night routine

Buffalo's threshold, Kp 6.7, means G2 to G3 storms. When SWPC issues a watch, the first thing to check here is the cloud forecast, not the Kp: the hour strip of the tool shows the National Weather Service sky cover for each hour of the night. If the lake bands sit over the city but the forecast clears the north, the drive is short. On September 15, full darkness lasts 8.3 hours. For the rest of the state, see the New York page, and across the water the Toronto page.