Will I See / United States / Chicago

Will I see the northern lights in Chicago tonight?

Tonight in Chicago

Probably not

Clouds and quiet aurora activity (Kp 1.3 forecast, 7.8 needed here) both work against you tonight.

Updated 8 min agoUpdates every 10 min
0%chance at the best hour tonight
51.0°magnetic latitude
Kp 7.8needed here
11 hdark hours tonight
25% litmoon

Hour by hour tonight

chance %cloud %Kp forecast● moon up
HourChanceCloudKpMoon

Loading tonight's hours…

Times are local (America/Chicago). Only hours with the sun below −6° are shown. Kp forecast: NOAA SWPC. Clouds: MET Norway.

Get an email when tonight looks good in Chicago

The northern lights reach Chicago only in big storms. We'll tell you when one lines up with a clear, dark night. At most one email a night, one click to stop.

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Planning a trip to Chicago?

Auroras in Chicago need a geomagnetic storm (about Kp 7.8). In 2015–2025 that lined up with a clear, dark sky on 3 nights in 11 years, so treat a sighting here as a bonus, not a plan.

Trip odds here round to zero in almost every week, so we don't chart them. Your best bet is to watch the Kp index: when a storm reaches about Kp 7.8 and the sky above is clear, this page's live forecast will say so.

Every night you could have seen them, 2015–2025

3 nights in 11 years were clear and dark in Chicago while auroras reached far enough, by our estimate from NASA cloud data and the Kp record. The strongest: 10 May 2024 (Kp 9). Most came near the solar maximum of 2024–2025.

2015none
2016none
2017none
2018none
2019none
2020none
2021none
2022none
2023none
20242 nights
  • 10 May Kp 9
  • 10 Oct Kp 8.3
20251 night
  • 11 Nov Kp 8.7

A "night you could have seen them" = at least one hour that was dark, mostly clear and with Kp at or above the Kp 7.8 that Chicago needs. Look north, low on the horizon, away from town lights: the northern lights here are usually a glow that a phone camera picks up better than your eyes.

Better odds nearby

Places within 700 km of Chicago with more good nights a year.

Grand Marais

5/yr
good nights a year (Chicago: under 1)690 km away · Kp 5.4 needed

Marquette

3/yr
good nights a year (Chicago: under 1)520 km away · Kp 5.9 needed

Minneapolis

2/yr
good nights a year (Chicago: under 1)570 km away · Kp 6.5 needed

Door County

2/yr
good nights a year (Chicago: under 1)350 km away · Kp 6.5 needed

Chicago northern lights: questions

Rarely. Chicago sits at 51.0° magnetic latitude, so auroras need about Kp 7.8, which means a geomagnetic storm. Our record (2015–2025) shows 3 nights in 11 years with a clear, dark sky and auroras strong enough to see.

There is no reliable season: auroras this far south come with strong geomagnetic storms, which can happen in any dark month. Watch the live forecast and the Kp index instead of planning a trip around them.

About Kp 7.8. We worked that out from Chicago's magnetic latitude (51.0°) with a rule calibrated against the Finnish Meteorological Institute's sighting statistics. Look north, low on the horizon, away from town lights.

Every 10 minutes we take NOAA's Kp forecast and MET Norway's hourly cloud forecast for Chicago, add the sun and moon, and score each hour of tonight. The verdict is the best hour. How it works explains the calibration.