Northern lights tonight in the US
Northern lights tonight is a local question. A planetary Kp index is not a yes for your county. This homepage lists the US places we cover: each row is a GO, MAYBE, or NO from the same NOAA oval and cloud snapshot. Search a city or ZIP if your place is missing, or open a state page if you already know the name.
Use the table as a trip filter, not as a firework schedule. Quiet nights will show many NOs. That is the product working. Mid-latitude states need a strong storm. Oval-under places still lose to clouds and twilight. We do not invent a nationwide showtime, and we do not print a fake 73% chance.
The card above is a labeled sample reading (Fairbanks, Alaska when data is live), not a national average. If your sky is in Colorado or Ohio, ignore that sample and open the matching row. A Front Range city is not the same night as Interior Alaska.
How to read the table
Each row is one covered place. Status is the night judgment. The named point under a state is the headline, not downtown by default. Colorado uses the Fort Collins area. Oregon uses Baker City, not Portland. If you live in the bright core, read the local page’s leave-the-city note before you treat a MAYBE as a porch event.
Rows can all be NO. Do not scroll looking for a hidden GO. If the oval is out of reach and clouds are socked in, we say no. UNKNOWN means we cannot judge right now because data is missing or stale. We would rather show UNKNOWN than last hour’s leftover GO.
Click a place to get hours, the main obstacle, and nearby states. The table is the index. The local page is the answer.
What GO / MAYBE / NO means here
- GO — conditions line up well enough to try. Still look north, still need darkness, still wait.
- MAYBE — possible, with a named obstacle: horizon-only oval, mixed clouds, or city glow.
- NO — not worth a special trip tonight.
- UNKNOWN — cannot judge tonight. We will not guess.
This homepage never becomes a color map you have to decode. If you wanted a percentage, you will not find one. Methodology explains the gates in order: darkness, oval reach, clouds, then glow and moon.
Location first, then the clock
There is no single US clock. Darkness arrives later in the west and later in summer. Alaska can stay too bright around the solstice even when the oval is active. A Lower 48 storm in May still needs a dark enough sky. Open the local page for the window; this homepage will not fake a 10:40 PM Eastern showtime.
If you asked “what time tonight,” the honest answer is: after it is actually dark at your coordinates, in the slots that are not socked in, while the oval still reaches you. That sentence only becomes a clock on a place page.
Standing regions versus event nights
Alaska Interior, northern Minnesota, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and northern Maine sit closer to the oval. They are the usual US travel targets. They still have no-show nights. Colorado, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and similar mid-latitude states are event-only. Most nights are no. When they go, the useful sky is the dark north horizon away from the biggest light dome.
Seattle is often a cloud problem before it is a Kp problem. Chicago is almost never a downtown overhead curtain. Read the local FAQ instead of a viral phone photo from a darker county.
What this site will not do
We do not list unverified parking lots. We do not sell tours. We are not affiliated with NOAA. Cloud data is adapted from Open-Meteo. The browser does not call NOAA; pages read snapshots. Stale snapshots display UNKNOWN.
If you need a ZIP, use near me. If you need season rather than this night, use best time. If you need posture — face north, wait, put the phone down — use how to see. If you need the gate order, use how we decide. The homepage job is the US table plus a search box.
Using the search box
Type a US city, state, or 5-digit ZIP. We match it to a covered page or to a live pin that is not a second indexed URL. GPS is optional and runs only after you click Use my location. We do not store that point as an account. Southern-hemisphere coordinates get an unavailable reading, not a fake aurora score.
Related: Where to see the northern lights · Best time · How to see · How we decide
If you only remember one rule
Northern lights tonight is local. Open the row that matches your state or city. If the status is NO, believe the obstacle. If it is MAYBE, fix the obstacle or stay home. If it is GO, still face north and wait. The homepage table is the index; the local page is the night.
Coverage tonight
The table is Colorado, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Chicago, Seattle, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Maine, Minnesota, Illinois, Oregon, Utah, Alaska, and Fairbanks. That is not every US state. It is the first indexed set. A missing row is not a scientific claim that your county is impossible; it is a product boundary. Search a ZIP anyway.
What the sample card is
The large card is a sample for Fairbanks, Alaska when readings are live, because that is a place people actually travel for aurora. It is not “the US tonight.” Ohio users should ignore it and open Ohio. If all rows are UNKNOWN, the card says we cannot judge tonight and we do not guess.
Related
Near me · Where tonight · Privacy · Terms