Northern lights in Svolvær tonight and this season

1Aurora over Svolvær right now

2The Kp index Svolvær needs

Svolvær lies at 68.2° N, which is 66.9° N geomagnetic latitude on the WMM2025 dipole. NOAA's viewing tips put the edge of the auroral oval at about 66° geomagnetic for Kp 0 and move it about 2° closer to the equator with each Kp level, down to 48° at Kp 9. At 66.9° N Svolvær is inside the oval before any storm begins, so the cards on this site use Kp 1, the lowest value they show. NOAA also notes that aurora can often be observed hundreds of kilometres equatorward of the oval's edge, so a bright display can show low on the northern horizon one Kp level earlier.

3Kp forecast for the next 3 days

Data: NOAA SWPC. Slots before now are NOAA estimates, the rest are predicted values.

4When the sky over Svolvær is dark enough

The aurora needs a dark sky as much as it needs Kp, and darkness is a matter of latitude and date. Fully dark nights in Svolvær (sun 18° below the horizon) run from 13 September to 29 March. From 15 April to 27 August the sky never gets darker than nautical twilight, so only a strong display shows, low on the horizon. The polar night lasts from 7 December to 4 January, 29 days with the sun below the horizon all day, when the aurora can show in the afternoon. The midnight sun lasts from 25 May to 18 July, 55 days. Dates are an own calculation from the sun's declination for the latitude of Svolvær, with the US Naval Observatory definitions of twilight, and can be a day off at the edges. Clouds and moonlight are the other half of the question: the home page shows the moon phase for each of the next 27 days.

5Why Norway for the northern lights

Northern Norway is the busiest aurora coast in Europe. Tromsø has the longest tour list on this site, Alta hosted the world's first northern lights observatory, built on Mount Haldde for Kristian Birkeland's expedition of 1899 to 1900 and staffed permanently from 1912 to 1926, and the Lofoten islands add mountains and sea to the foreground. All three sit inside the oval, so Kp 1 is enough when the sky is dark and clear.

All places in Norway with their odds tonight.

6Svolvær compared with the other places in Norway

The table lists the 3 places in Norway on this site. All of them need Kp 1.

7Northern lights tours in Svolvær

No guided aurora tour from Svolvær passes the catalogue filter of 4.3 stars and 20 reviews yet. The aurora probability above does not depend on tours: a dark spot outside the lights of the town is the first thing to find.