What Time Are the Northern Lights Visible Tonight?
Short answer: once twilight is fully gone. Longer answer: it depends on what's causing tonight's storm, and whether it's arrived yet.
The northern lights are most likely to appear once true darkness sets in and twilight has completely faded, for most people, that lands somewhere around 10pm to 2am local time. But the clock is only half the answer. The other half depends on what kind of solar event is driving tonight's activity, and whether it's actually reached Earth yet.
If you've searched "what time do the northern lights come out tonight" or "are the northern lights out tonight," you've probably noticed most answers online give you a general rule of thumb and stop there. That rule of thumb is a real starting point, but on its own it can't tell you whether tonight, specifically, is worth staying up for, because not every geomagnetic storm behaves the same way, or arrives on the same kind of schedule.
What actually causes a geomagnetic storm?
Almost every aurora display traces back to one of two kinds of solar events, and they behave very differently when it comes to timing.
Predictable, recurring
A coronal hole is a gap in the sun's outer atmosphere that lets a steady stream of high-speed solar wind escape. Because the sun rotates roughly every 27 days, a coronal hole that faced Earth once will often rotate back into position again, making its arrival window comparatively easy to anticipate.
Powerful, uncertain
A CME is a one-off eruption of plasma and magnetic field hurled outward from the sun. CMEs can drive far stronger storms than coronal holes, but their travel time through space is harder to pin down, arrival estimates can be off by as much as 24 hours or more in either direction.
That uncertainty is exactly why "is there a storm tonight" isn't always a settled question in advance, even a day out. A CME forecast to arrive tonight might show up early, arrive late tomorrow, or turn out weaker than modeled, which is a normal outcome of how CMEs are tracked, not a forecasting failure.
How our tools help you time it
Rather than leaving you to track solar activity yourself, we build the uncertainty directly into the forecast so you can plan around it.
Our CME Forecasts section on the homepage shows solar storms currently in transit toward Earth, with their expected arrival window in UTC. If a CME is still inbound, you'll see roughly when it's due, so you know whether tonight is a "storm confirmed" night or a "storm expected, not yet arrived" night.
Aurora+ and Chaser Pro subscribers can watch real-time solar wind data and get alerted the moment there's a significant magnetic field enhancement, often the earliest sign a storm has actually arrived, well before it shows up in the standard Kp reading. We also walk subscribers through how to read that data, since a raw solar wind graph isn't self-explanatory the first time you look at it.
The free zip or postal code tool automatically factors in confirmed current Kp, so your odds will already climb on their own whenever a storm is actively underway, you don't need to cross-reference the CME timeline or the solar wind data yourself unless you want the extra detail.
So what time should you actually go out?
Once the sun has set and twilight has fully faded, that's your baseline window, the aurora needs genuine darkness to be visible at all. From there, the storm itself decides whether that window is worth it:
- If a storm is already confirmed active (current Kp is elevated, or subscribers have seen the solar wind jump and the magnetic field turn southward), go out as soon as it's properly dark. You don't need to wait for anything else.
- If a CME is still inbound, check the expected arrival window in the CME Forecasts section, and check back around that time. A storm that hasn't arrived yet won't produce aurora no matter how dark or clear your sky is.
- Either way, keep checking. Displays tend to arrive in bursts (called substorms) lasting 10 to 30 minutes, so a single glance outside can easily miss one, even during an active storm.
Can you see the northern lights through clouds?
No. However bright the geomagnetic activity, overcast skies block the display completely. A Kp 7 storm under 90% cloud cover will produce zero visible aurora at ground level, which is exactly why our confidence score checks the Kp index and your local cloud cover together, instead of leaving you to reconcile two separate numbers.
Skip the guesswork for tonight
Check your zip or postal code for tonight's combined odds, or browse the CME timeline to see what's still inbound.
Check Tonight's Odds →Frequently asked questions
What time do the northern lights come out?
Once true darkness sets in and twilight is fully gone, typically clustered around local solar midnight, for most people, somewhere around 10pm to 2am.
Are the northern lights out tonight?
That depends on your Kp index, your local darkness, and your local cloud cover, all three, checked for your specific location, not just a global average.
Can you see the northern lights through clouds?
No. The aurora happens well above cloud level, so overcast skies block it completely regardless of how active the geomagnetic storm is.
What's the difference between a coronal hole and a coronal mass ejection?
A coronal hole is a persistent gap in the sun's corona that streams solar wind fairly predictably, rotating back into position roughly every 27 days. A CME is a one-off eruption that can be far stronger, but its arrival time is much less certain, sometimes by 24 hours or more.
How do I know if a solar storm has already arrived?
Watching real-time solar wind data is the most direct way to tell, a jump in speed and density, paired with the magnetic field turning southward, usually means the storm has arrived. Subscribers can watch this live and get alerted the moment it happens.