Best season to watch Aurora Borealis

Auroras, caused by solar winds, occur year-round but the nights need to be dark enough for us to be able to catch a glimpse of this phenomenal light show.

Let’s take a step back and understand what it means for us. We all know that aurora borealis is viewed more frequently as we go north. Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian Lapland are best places to view aurora. Astronomical study shows that the phenomenon of aurora happens almost 200 days in a year within the Lapland. But sadly, they are not visible all throughout the year.

Why?

The land of Midnight Sun

Here comes are geography of polar region. As we know, during summer, Lapland witnesses very long days. It is famously known as the land of the midnight sun. During the months of July – August, the sun doesn’t set at all in this region. But even between mid-April and end-August, the days are long, and nights not dark. The diffraction from sunlight casts a hazy light all throughout the night, making the night-sky faintly lighted. While the midnight-sun is a geographical wonder by itself, the lack of a dark night sky plays spoilsports for the visibility of aurora. When the winter solstice starts, the chances of seeing aurora becomes brighter.

[TravelLive organises 2 tours in the region to experience the midnight-sun. Checkout Iceland and Lapland and Scandinavia and beyond Arctic.]

That is why autumn, winter, and spring are the best times to see the Northern Lights. Many people associate the Northern Lights with winter, but the most active seasons are actually autumn and spring. This is when the earth’s orientation towards the sun maximizes the probability of solar flares interacting with the planet’s magnetic field, which creates this mesmerizing phenomenon. Statistically, the lights are visible on every second night. The best aurora-watching season starts at the end of August, when the nights get darker, and ends at the start of April, when the nights start to get lighter. Seeing them requires clear skies and just a bit of luck.

The Moon cycle

The moon plays an important part in aurora visibility. The sky is perfectly dark on the no-moon day (Amāvásyā – Sanskrit: अमावस्या). This period offers the best chance of seeing aurora in all its glory. Remember that the Lapland is very sparsely populated and almost without any air pollution. The moon is very bright and dazzles the sky during or close to full-moon nights. This makes the aurora look pale or even invisible in particularly bright full-moon period.

In the year 2024, the no-moon days in autumn fall on these days:

October – October 2, 2024
November – November 1, 2024 and November 30, 2024

The best chances of viewing a dazzling aurora are around 2nd October and 1st November, 2024.

The weather

The skies must be dark and cloudless for northern lights sightings. The likelihood of seeing the auroras is close to zero when it rains or snows, because clouds are covering the skies. Hence the period of Mid-November to late-January are not the best, as these regions has a strong probability of snowfall.

TravelLive Tours during the Aurora season

We are offering two different tours during this season to maximise the chance of experiencing the canvas of shimmering shades of blue, red, yellow, green and purple night sky. Check out

Iceland and Lapland

Aurora Express