Will I See / United Kingdom / Lake District

Will I see the northern lights in Lake District tonight?

Tonight in Lake District

Probably not

Skies look partly clear, but auroras are forecast to be quiet: Kp 3.7, and Lake District needs about Kp 7.7.

Updated 2 min agoUpdates every 10 min
0%chance at the best hour tonight
51.3°magnetic latitude
Kp 7.7needed here
12 hdark hours tonight
18% litmoon

Hour by hour tonight

chance %cloud %Kp forecast● moon up
HourChanceCloudKpMoon

Loading tonight's hours…

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

Get an email when tonight looks good in Lake District

The northern lights reach Lake District 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 Lake District?

Auroras in Lake District need a geomagnetic storm (about Kp 7.7). 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 7.7 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 Lake District 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 8.7
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 7.7 that Lake District 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 Lake District with more good nights a year.

Shetland

5/yr
good nights a year (Lake District: under 1)630 km away · Kp 5 needed

Orkney

2/yr
good nights a year (Lake District: under 1)490 km away · Kp 5.5 needed

Caithness

2/yr
good nights a year (Lake District: under 1)440 km away · Kp 5.7 needed

Isle of Skye

1/yr
good nights a year (Lake District: under 1)370 km away · Kp 6.2 needed

Lake District northern lights: questions

Rarely. Lake District sits at 51.3° magnetic latitude, so auroras need about Kp 7.7, 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 7.7. We worked that out from Lake District's magnetic latitude (51.3°) 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 Lake District, add the sun and moon, and score each hour of tonight. The verdict is the best hour. How it works explains the calibration.