Ulster, IrelandMagnetic latitude 52.3°Population 1,55315 m above sea level
Northern lights in Derrybeg
Derrybeg needs an active night: from about Kp 5 the aurora appears low over the north horizon, and it rises higher as activity grows. Since 1995 that level (Kp 5) was reached during darkness here on 677 nights.
Right now
The solar wind is picking up — activity may jump within the hour. Keep this page open.
Latest measured half-hour activity worldwide: Hp30 3.
Updates every minute while this page is open. Ground data: GFZ Potsdam Hp30 index (CC BY 4.0).
Tonight in one minute
Only in photos, if at all
- Solar activity Enough for a camera: Kp 4 expected, 3.3 needed for photos, 5 for the eye.
- Sky Mostly clear (15% cloud).
- Darkness Dark from 19:50 to 06:47.
What to do: Point a phone in night mode north (3–10 s exposure). A red or green glow often shows on the screen before you can see it.
- Detailed forecast Fri 16 4 Photos only · Kp 4
- Sat 17 2 No · Kp 2
- Sun 18 1.7 No · Kp 1.7
- 27-day trend Mon 19 2 No · Kp 2
- Tue 20 3 No · Kp 3
- Wed 21 4 Unlikely · Kp 4
- Thu 22 4 Unlikely · Kp 4
- Fri 23 4 Unlikely · Kp 4
- Sat 24 3 No · Kp 3
- Sun 25 2 No · Kp 2
- Mon 26 2 No · Kp 2
- Tue 27 2 No · Kp 2
- Wed 28 2 No · Kp 2
- Thu 29 2 No · Kp 2
- Fri 30 5 Possible · Kp 5
- Sat 31 5 Possible · Kp 5
- Sun 1 5 Possible · Kp 5
- Mon 2 3 No · Kp 3
- Tue 3 2 No · Kp 2
- Wed 4 2 No · Kp 2
- Thu 5 3 No · Kp 3
- Fri 6 3 No · Kp 3
- Sat 7 3 No · Kp 3
Friday 30 October — Possible · Kp 5 · best around 23:30 · No cloud forecast this far ahead; in October about 15% of nights are clear here. · Reliability: low (rough trend)
Each box is one night: the colour shows the chance, the number the expected Kp. Tap a night for details.
📅 Add these nights to your calendar — it updates itself (.ics)
How far ahead can the northern lights be forecast?
- Minutes to an hour: satellites 1.5 million km away measure the solar wind before it reaches Earth. This is the surest warning — the “Right now” box uses it.
- 1–3 days: when the Sun throws out a cloud of particles, it takes one to three days to arrive. NOAA's 3-hourly forecast covers these nights; the timing can still be off by a few hours.
- 4–27 days: the Sun turns once every 27 days, and regions that disturbed Earth's field last time often do it again. NOAA's 27-day outlook gives this rough trend — new eruptions are not in it yet.
Tonight
Updated 22:31 local time
Possible
Best around 02:00. Forecast max Kp 4.0 (this place needs 5), average cloud 15%.
- Dark enough
- 19:50 – 06:47
- Sunset
- 18:31 · sunrise 08:06
- Moon
- 34% · ↑ 15:48 · ↓ 20:52
- Kp neededKp index: a 0–9 measure of geomagnetic activity. The higher it is, the further from the poles the aurora reaches.
- Kp 5
- Kp for photos
- In photos: from Kp 3.3 (a red glow low in the north).
- Look towards
- north (354°)
Cloud layers and weather
Low cloud blocks the aurora completely. Thin high cloud often still lets a bright aurora shine through, so a sky with only high cloud is worth a look.
| Time | Fri, 22 | Sat, 01 | Sat, 04 | Sat, 19 | Sat, 22 | Sun, 01 | Sun, 04 | Sun, 19 | Sun, 22 | Mon, 01 | Mon, 04 | Mon, 19 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low cloud | 4% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 75% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 95% | 89% | 100% | 0% |
| Mid cloud | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 22% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| High cloud | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 39% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Temperature | 11 °C | 8 °C | 8 °C | 9 °C | 9 °C | 9 °C | 7 °C | 9 °C | 9 °C | 8 °C | 9 °C | 10 °C |
| Feels like | 8 °C | 6 °C | 5 °C | 7 °C | 7 °C | 6 °C | 4 °C | 6 °C | 7 °C | 6 °C | 7 °C | 7 °C |
| Wind | 3 m/s | 2 m/s | 2 m/s | 2 m/s | 2 m/s | 3 m/s | 2 m/s | 3 m/s | 2 m/s | 2 m/s | 1 m/s | 3 m/s |
| Visibility | 50 km | 50 km | 50 km | 50 km | 50 km | 48 km | 38 km | 45 km | 30 km | 23 km | 23 km | 24 km |
Cloud layers and weather: Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0).
Score = activity (NOAA Kp and OVATION) × clear sky (MET Norway) × darkness × moonlight. Methodology
Seeing it right now?
Tell others in Ulster. Reports from real visitors move a place up the live ranking.
Reports are anonymous: we do not store your IP address or location. One report per place every few hours.
Live webcams near Derrybeg
Check the sky for yourself: public cameras within 300 km. They open on the camera owner's website.
These cameras belong to their owners — we only link to them. Most show little in daylight or under cloud, and some pause in summer.
What you would see from Derrybeg
Facing north. Bands show where the aurora sits at two activity levels.
| Kp | What you see | Lower edge | Ray tops | Distance to the aurora |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Below the horizon | 0° | 5° | 1,134 km |
| 3 | Below the horizon | 2° | 8° | 912 km |
| 4 | Faint glow, mostly on camera | 5° | 13° | 689 km |
| 5 | Visible to the north | 10° | 21° | 467 km |
| 6 | Visible to the north | 22° | 38° | 245 km |
| 7 | Visible to the north | 78° | 83° | 22 km |
| 8 | Overhead and all around | – | – | – |
| 9 | Overhead, and also to the south | – | – | – |
The Kp scale in plain words
Kp is a 0–9 score for how strongly the Earth's magnetic field is being shaken by the solar wind. The higher it goes, the further from the poles the northern lights reach. Kp 0–2 is a quiet night; Kp 5 and above is a geomagnetic storm.
- Kp 0–2 Quiet Only under the auroral oval: northern Norway, Swedish and Finnish Lapland, Iceland, Alaska, northern Canada.
- Kp 3 Unsettled camera in Derrybeg Bright in the Arctic; low on the horizon in central Scandinavia and southern Iceland.
- Kp 4 Active next 24 h Overhead in the Arctic; low in the north from southern Norway, Sweden, Finland and northern Scotland.
- Kp 5 Minor storm (G1) eye in Derrybeg Scotland, southern Scandinavia, the Baltic states, the northern US states and southern Canada.
- Kp 6 Moderate storm (G2) Northern England, Denmark, northern Germany and Poland, the US Midwest — often clearer in photos than to the eye.
- Kp 7 Strong storm (G3) Most of the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Czechia; red glow in photos from France and the northern Alps.
- Kp 8 Severe storm (G4) Central Europe to the eye; red sky in photos from northern Italy, Spain, the Balkans and Turkey's Black Sea coast.
- Kp 9 Extreme storm (G5) Seen across Europe and the US; in photos as far south as the Mediterranean, Turkey and North Africa (May 2024).
Light pollution
Pristine dark sky. Almost no artificial light: faint aurora and the Milky Way are easy to see.
Estimate from NASA VIIRS night-light data (sky-glow model within 50 km). Check access and private land before you go.
Hills and mountains
The horizon towards the north is open (terrain below 2.0°), so low aurora is not blocked.
From elevation data (AWS Terrain Tiles) along seven lines of sight up to 30 km.
Best months to see the aurora in Derrybeg
Share of nights 2005–2025 that were dark, active enough here and mostly clear.
April has been the best month (2% of nights), followed by March (2%).
| Month | Good nights | Clear nights | Darkness | Low / high |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September | 0.6% | 17% | 8.4 h | 11° / 15°C |
| October | 0.8% | 15% | 10.8 h | 9° / 12°C |
| November | 0.3% | 7% | 12.6 h | 6° / 9°C |
| December | 0.3% | 6% | 13.6 h | 5° / 8°C |
| January | 0.2% | 6% | 13.1 h | 4° / 7°C |
| February | 0.7% | 13% | 11.4 h | 4° / 7°C |
| March | 2% | 17% | 9.5 h | 4° / 8°C |
| April | 2% | 30% | 6.6 h | 5° / 10°C |
Darkness through the year
- No full darkness (Sun 12° below the horizon) from 5 June to 8 July — the sky stays too bright for most auroras.
- Next new moon 9 November, next full moon 26 October. The darkest skies are in the week around new moon.
Aurora nights in Derrybeg since 1995
Nights when Kp reached 5 or more while it was dark here.
Most recent strong nights
- 10 October 2026 · Kp 7.0
- 4 October 2026 · Kp 5.7
- 3 July 2026 · Kp 5.3
- 15 May 2026 · Kp 6.0
- 3 April 2026 · Kp 5.7
- 22 March 2026 · Kp 6.7
- 20 March 2026 · Kp 7.0
- 13 March 2026 · Kp 6.0
Practical information
- Nearest airport
- Donegal Airport (CFN) · 5 km
- Typical low / high in April
- 5° / 10°C
- What to wear
- Cool nights: layers, a windproof jacket, hat and gloves for standing still outside. Full clothing guide
- Emergency number
- 112 / 999
- Winter driving
- Irish law does not require winter tyres (legal minimum tread 1.6 mm; Gardaí recommend at least 3 mm in winter); check TII Traffic Info for national road conditions. Road conditions
- Access to land
- Ireland has no general right to roam: off public roads and rights of way, access to private (and state) land is at the landowner's discretion and can be withdrawn, though permissive access is common on waymarked trails and schemes like the Mountain Access Scheme.
- Weather service
- Met Éireann
Questions and answers
What Kp do you need to see the aurora in Derrybeg?
Derrybeg needs an active night: from about Kp 5 the aurora appears low over the north horizon, and it rises higher as activity grows.
Which way should I look for the aurora in Derrybeg?
Face north (about 354° from true north). At Kp 5 the lower edge of the aurora sits roughly 10° above the horizon; stronger activity lifts it higher and further across the sky.
What is the best month to see the aurora in Derrybeg?
Over 2005–2025, April gave the best odds in Derrybeg (2% of nights dark, active enough and mostly clear), followed by March (2%).
When is the aurora season in Derrybeg?
From 5 June to 8 July the sky in Derrybeg never gets dark enough. Outside that period the aurora can be seen whenever activity and clouds allow.
Is there much light pollution in Derrybeg?
Almost no artificial light: faint aurora and the Milky Way are easy to see.
When was the aurora last possible in Derrybeg?
The most recent night in our data when activity reached the level Derrybeg needs, during darkness, was 10 October 2026 (Kp 7.0). It has happened on 677 nights since 1995.
Also covered by this forecast
Villages and districts around Derrybeg share its forecast: within a few kilometres the sky, the Kp needed and the best direction are the same.
- Middletown 1 km
- Bunbeg 3 km
- Brinlack 4 km
- Meenaclady 8 km
- Meenlaragh 9 km
- Gortnasate 9 km
- East Town 20 km
- West Town 21 km