Northern lights in United Kingdom: tonight’s chance

From Shetland to the Channel

Few countries cover such a range of aurora odds in so small an area. From Lerwick to London the threshold rises by 3.4 Kp, which on the NOAA scale is the gap between an ordinary active night and a strong storm. The north of Scotland lies close enough to the oval that a G1 night is worth watching; the Central Belt and Northern Ireland need a G2; much of England needs a G3. NOAA counts about 200 storms of that strength per solar cycle, far fewer than the 1700 of G1 level, which is why the southern sightings of 2024 made headlines.

The cause is magnetic, not geographic. The UK lies on the Atlantic side of the globe, far from the magnetic pole in the Canadian Arctic, so its magnetic latitude runs several degrees below its map latitude: Edinburgh sits at 56.0 degrees north on the map but 53.1 degrees in the AACGM model.

Bright northern summers and long winter nights

Northern latitudes cut both ways. In midwinter Shetland has 12.6 hours of full darkness on December 15, plenty for a long watch. In midsummer the same islands get none at all for 4 months, a period Shetlanders call the simmer dim. For aurora purposes the year therefore splits into a dark season from late August to April and a summer gap that widens the farther north you go. London's gap covers only June and July, but London needs a far larger storm, so its real season is no longer than Scotland's.

Cloud, coasts and dark sky parks

Atlantic weather is the British handicap. Fronts cross the country every few days, and the NASA POWER averages stay high everywhere: even the clearest month in Glasgow, April, averages 71% cloud amount. The useful trick is to watch the gaps behind a cold front, which often clear the sky for a few hours, and to move east or west to find them. Dark sites help once the sky is open: Galloway Forest Park in southwest Scotland was designated an International Dark Sky Park in 2009, one of the first in the world, and Forestry and Land Scotland points stargazers to sites such as Clatteringshaws Loch and Glentrool. For the northern isles see the Lerwick page; for the Highlands, Inverness; for the capital, London.