Nordland, NorwayMagnetic latitude 66.9°Population 2,6941 m above sea level
Northern lights in Andenes
Andenes sits right under the auroral oval: on clear, dark nights the aurora is often overhead, even when activity is quiet. Clouds matter far more than the Kp number here.
Right now
It is still light here. Darkness starts at 19:00.
Magnetometer at Kilpisjärvi (187 km away): low magnetic activity.
Updates every minute while this page is open. Ground data: FMI MIRACLE R-index (CC BY 4.0).
Tonight in one minute
Maybe — worth a look
- Solar activity Strong enough: Kp 3.7 expected, 0 needed here.
- Sky Partly cloudy (66% cloud) — look for gaps.
- Darkness Dark from 19:00 to 06:21. A bright moon (76%) washes out faint displays.
What to do: Go somewhere dark around 05:00, give your eyes 15 minutes to adjust and look north, low over the horizon.
Thursday 22 October — Possible · Kp 3.7 · best around 06:00 · Forecast cloud: 65%. · Reliability: good
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 14:07 local time
Excellent chance
Best around 05:00. Forecast max Kp 3.7 (this place needs 0), average cloud 66%.
- Dark enough
- 19:00 – 06:21
- Sunset
- 16:49 · sunrise 08:33
- Moon
- 76% · ↑ 17:10 · ↓ 01:46
- Kp neededKp index: a 0–9 measure of geomagnetic activity. The higher it is, the further from the poles the aurora reaches.
- Kp 0
- 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 | Wed, 18 | Wed, 21 | Thu, 00 | Thu, 03 | Thu, 06 | Thu, 20 | Thu, 23 | Fri, 02 | Fri, 05 | Fri, 19 | Fri, 22 | Sat, 01 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low cloud | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 1% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Mid cloud | 0% | 8% | 48% | 58% | 18% | 38% | 19% | 0% | 0% | 18% | 28% | 44% |
| High cloud | 83% | 93% | 32% | 0% | 0% | 100% | 82% | 60% | 54% | 40% | 60% | 95% |
| Temperature | 9 °C | 9 °C | 9 °C | 10 °C | 10 °C | 10 °C | 10 °C | 10 °C | 10 °C | 10 °C | 10 °C | 10 °C |
| Feels like | 6 °C | 6 °C | 6 °C | 7 °C | 7 °C | 7 °C | 7 °C | 7 °C | 7 °C | 10 °C | 7 °C | 7 °C |
| Wind | 5 m/s | 6 m/s | 6 m/s | 6 m/s | 7 m/s | 7 m/s | 8 m/s | 8 m/s | 8 m/s | 7 m/s | 7 m/s | 6 m/s |
Cloud layers and weather: Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0).
Score = activity (NOAA Kp and OVATION) × clear sky (MET Norway) × darkness × moonlight. Methodology
Weather in Andenes
The aurora only shows through clear skies, so the weather matters as much as the Kp index. Here is the general forecast for Andenes: temperature, wind and the chance of rain for the coming days.
Planning further ahead? See the hour-by-hour weather forecast for Andenes on Atlas of Seasons.
Seeing it right now?
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Live webcams near Andenes
Check the sky for yourself: public cameras within 300 km. They open on the camera owner's website.
- Andenes, Andøya webcams (Yr) ↗ Open the live camera (opens in a new tab) Scenic
- Andøya (ALOMAR) all-sky camera ↗ Open the live camera (opens in a new tab) All-sky
- Harstad – Grytøya ↗ Open the live camera (opens in a new tab) Scenic
- Harstad panorama ↗ Open the live camera (opens in a new tab) Scenic
- Senja – Silsand ↗ Open the live camera (opens in a new tab) Scenic
These cameras belong to their owners — we only link to them. Most show little in daylight or under cloud, and some pause in summer.
Do you host guests in Andenes? Give them a free aurora forecast page and a QR poster for your property. Create a guest page →
What you would see from Andenes
Facing north. Bands show where the aurora sits at two activity levels.
| Kp | What you see | Lower edge | Ray tops | Distance to the aurora |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Overhead and all around | – | – | – |
| 2 | Overhead, and also to the south | – | – | – |
| 3 | Overhead, and also to the south | – | – | – |
| 4 | Overhead, and also to the south | – | – | – |
| 5 | Overhead, and also to the south | – | – | – |
| 6 | Overhead, and also to the south | – | – | – |
| 7 | Overhead, and also to the south | – | – | – |
| 8 | Overhead, and also to the south | – | – | – |
| 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 eye in Andenes Only under the auroral oval: northern Norway, Swedish and Finnish Lapland, Iceland, Alaska, northern Canada.
- Kp 3 Unsettled 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) 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 0.0°), 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 Andenes
Share of nights 2005–2025 that were dark, active enough here and mostly clear.
September has been the best month (22% of nights), followed by October (20%).
| Month | Good nights | Clear nights | Darkness | Low / high |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September | 22% | 22% | 5.4 h | 7° / 11°C |
| October | 20% | 20% | 10.3 h | 3° / 6°C |
| November | 17% | 17% | 13.9 h | 0° / 2°C |
| December | 19% | 19% | 15.6 h | -3° / 0°C |
| January | 19% | 19% | 14.9 h | -4° / -1°C |
| February | 18% | 18% | 11.6 h | -5° / -1°C |
| March | 19% | 19% | 7.6 h | -3° / 0°C |
| April | 9% | 26% | 0.9 h | -1° / 3°C |
Darkness through the year
- No full darkness (Sun 12° below the horizon) from 11 April to 1 September — the sky stays too bright for most auroras.
- Midnight sun from 19 May to 24 July.
- Polar night from 29 November to 13 January: the sun stays below the horizon, giving the longest viewing windows.
- Next new moon 9 November, next full moon 26 October. The darkest skies are in the week around new moon.
Aurora nights in Andenes since 1995
Nights when Kp reached 4.7 or more while it was dark here.
Most recent strong nights
- 10 October 2026 · Kp 7.0
- 4 October 2026 · Kp 5.7
- 3 April 2026 · Kp 5.7
- 22 March 2026 · Kp 6.7
- 20 March 2026 · Kp 7.0
- 13 March 2026 · Kp 6.0
- 3 March 2026 · Kp 5.0
- 22 February 2026 · Kp 5.3
Practical information
- Nearest airport
- Andøya Airport, Andenes (ANX) · 2 km
Harstad/Narvik Airport (EVE) · 94 km - Typical low / high in September
- 7° / 11°C
- What to wear
- Cool nights: layers, a windproof jacket, hat and gloves for standing still outside. Full clothing guide
- Emergency number
- 112 (police), 113 (ambulance), 110 (fire)
- Winter driving
- Winter tyres need at least 3 mm of tread from 1 November to the first Sunday after Easter Monday (16 October to 30 April in Nordland, Troms and Finnmark). Studded tyres are allowed in the same periods and outside them when conditions require. Road conditions are on Statens vegvesen's traffic information service (vegvesen.no/trafikk). Road conditions
- Access to land
- Allemannsretten gives free access to uncultivated land (utmark) such as forest, mountain and shoreline; cultivated land and yards (innmark) need the owner's consent. Overnight stays, including tents, motorhomes and vans, must be more than 150 m from an inhabited house or cabin, and you may stay at most two nights in one spot without permission.
- Official space-weather service
- Norwegian Centre for Space Weather (NOSWE), Tromsø Geophysical Observatory, UiT
- Weather service
- Norwegian Meteorological Institute (Yr)
Questions and answers
What Kp do you need to see the aurora in Andenes?
Andenes sits right under the auroral oval: on clear, dark nights the aurora is often overhead, even when activity is quiet. Clouds matter far more than the Kp number here.
Which way should I look for the aurora in Andenes?
Around Andenes the aurora is often right overhead. Start by facing north, but look up and all around — in strong storms it can fill the whole sky and even appear behind you.
What is the best month to see the aurora in Andenes?
Over 2005–2025, September gave the best odds in Andenes (22% of nights dark, active enough and mostly clear), followed by October (20%).
When is the aurora season in Andenes?
From 11 April to 1 September the sky in Andenes never gets dark enough. Outside that period the aurora can be seen whenever activity and clouds allow.
Is there much light pollution in Andenes?
Almost no artificial light: faint aurora and the Milky Way are easy to see.
When was the aurora last possible in Andenes?
Activity last reached storm level (Kp 5 or more) during darkness in Andenes on 10 October 2026 (Kp 7.0) — 747 such nights since 1995. Here the aurora also appears on many quieter nights.
Also covered by this forecast
Villages and districts around Andenes share its forecast: within a few kilometres the sky, the Kp needed and the best direction are the same.
- Fiskenes 6 km
- Skarstein 7 km
- Bleik 8 km
- Breidvika 12 km
- Kaldfarnes 34 km
- Grunnfarnes 34 km