01 — Northern lights in Riksgränsen tonight
Northern lights in Riksgränsen tonight: Good chance
Partly cloudy — gaps may open up. Space weather and darkness are more than enough; the clouds decide.
calculated 09:13 Swedish time · Kp NOAA SWPC 3-day forecast · cloud SMHI · darkness from the sun's altitude
Space weather right now
More in Swedish →Kp now
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Bz
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nT
Solar wind
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km/s
Fetching NOAA's latest readings …
02 — When tonight
Best from 20:00 until 05:00
Show as table
| Hour | Chance | Kp | Dark? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17:00 | Not tonight 0% | 0.7 | no |
| 18:00 | Slight chance 18% | 0.9 | no |
| 19:00 | Chance 45% | 1.1 | yes |
| 20:00 | Good chance 58% | 1.3 | yes |
| 21:00 | Good chance 58% | 1.3 | yes |
| 22:00 | Good chance 58% | 1.3 | yes |
| 23:00 | Good chance 58% | 1.3 | yes |
| 00:00 | Good chance 58% | 1.9 | yes |
| 01:00 | Good chance 58% | 2.4 | yes |
| 02:00 | Good chance 58% | 3 | yes |
| 02:00 | Good chance 58% | 3.1 | yes |
| 03:00 | Good chance 58% | 3.2 | yes |
| 04:00 | Good chance 58% | 3.3 | yes |
| 05:00 | Good chance 58% | 3.4 | yes |
| 06:00 | Chance 34% | 3.6 | yes |
From 18:05 it's dark enough. What holds the chance back is the cloud — and since we use one cloud figure for the whole night, the curve follows the darkness and Kp.
Kp per hour (second row) between NOAA's 3-hour values · cloud averaged over the night
03 — Why
All three have to line up
Space weather
100%
Riksgränsen needs about Kp 0. Tonight: Kp 3.3 expected.
NOAA SWPC · 3-day forecast
Riksgränsen magnetically ~66.5° N
Darkness
100%
Dark 18:05–06:30. Waxing gibbous, 98% lit and up tonight — faint aurora drowns easily.
the sun's altitude, hour by hour
moon 98% lit
Clear sky
Decides tonight58%
Partly cloudy in SMHI's forecast — gaps may open up.
SMHI, the Swedish weather service
nearest grid cell · night average
04 — Coming to Riksgränsen
Planning a trip?
all times are Swedish time · CEST until 25 Oct
The season
Late August to mid-April
dark hours in Riksgränsen, month by month
Darkest November to January. Outside the season the aurora is still there — the nights are just too light to see it.
Nights to watch
coarse outlook31 Oct–1 Nov Kp 5
Riksgränsen needs only about Kp 0, so any dark, clear night can work.
NOAA SWPC 27-day outlook, issued 19 Oct. It follows the Sun's 27-day rotation and can't see eruptions coming.
If you go out
Dress for −20 °C even if it says −10
You'll stand still for a long time. Wool closest to the skin, then layers, then something windproof.
Look north, away from the lights. A frozen lake or an open fell is perfect.
Give your eyes twenty minutes. To the eye the aurora is often paler than in photos — it grows as you adjust.
05 — Where to watch near Riksgränsen
Where it's darker still
Viewpoint pages are in Swedish.
06 — Tell me when it happens
Get an alert
Free, at most one of each a night, and you can stop whenever you like.
In the evening at 19:00 — when the forecast looks good
from the forecast
When it lights up — when NOAA measures enough
measured Kp, only when it's dark here
Alerts are set up on the Swedish page for Riksgränsen, and they arrive in Swedish. The button there says “Bevaka Riksgränsen” — that's “watch Riksgränsen”.
On iPhone: add the site to your Home Screen first (Share → Add to Home Screen), then open it from there.