Northern lights in Ohio: tonight’s chance

A shoreline that looks toward Ontario

Most of the lower Midwest has its big water on the wrong side. Chicago and Milwaukee face east over Lake Michigan, and Detroit looks south across its river at Canada. Ohio is the exception: Lake Erie lies along its northern border, so the beaches, piers and bluffs from Toledo past Sandusky, Cleveland and Ashtabula all open onto a horizon of water to the north. That matters because an aurora at Ohio's threshold never climbs high. At Kp 6.8 in Toledo or Kp 6.9 in Cleveland, the glow sits in the lowest part of the northern sky, exactly where tree lines and suburbs usually block the view inland. Inland Ohio, with its woodlots and rolling farmland, rarely offers a view that open.

The catch is the urban glow along the same shore. Inside Cleveland, Lorain or Toledo the lakefront is lit; the dark stretches are the parks and small harbor towns between the cities, and the islands off Sandusky Bay for those who can reach them.

One storm level for the whole state

From the Michigan line to the Ohio River, every town in this site's Ohio list needs a G3 (Strong) storm. Toledo and Cincinnati are less than one Kp apart at the threshold, Kp 6.8 against Kp 7.3. The difference grows when a storm overshoots. The oval itself reaches overhead in Toledo around Kp 7.5, but Cincinnati needs about Kp 8.7 for that, so during a severe storm northern Ohio may see color in the zenith while the south sees a bright band to the north. The Cleveland page and the Columbus page go into those two cities, and the storm scale guide explains what separates G3 from G4.

Geauga's dark park and the cloudy lake belt

Northeast Ohio has the state's best dark site and its worst cloud. Observatory Park, in Montville in Geauga County, holds International Dark Sky Park status at the Silver tier, which the Geauga Park District describes as the only such park in Ohio. It lies inland from the lake, in the hills east of Cleveland that catch lake-effect cloud and snow when cold air crosses Lake Erie in late autumn and winter. Cleveland's NASA POWER average reaches 84% in December, against 58% in September. Southwest Ohio is less grey: Cincinnati drops to 45% in September. On a storm night with lake cloud in the northeast, driving west toward Toledo or south toward the farm country can be the better bet. The Michigan page and the Pennsylvania page cover the neighbors.