Will I See / United Kingdom / Manchester

Will I see the northern lights in Manchester tonight?

Tonight in Manchester

Probably not

Skies look partly clear, but auroras are forecast to be quiet: Kp 3.7, and Manchester needs about Kp 8.3.

Updated just nowUpdates every 10 min
0%chance at the best hour tonight
49.9°magnetic latitude
Kp 8.3needed 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 Manchester

The northern lights reach Manchester 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.

We use your address only for these alerts and confirm it first. Privacy

Planning a trip to Manchester?

Auroras in Manchester need a geomagnetic storm (about Kp 8.3). In 2015–2025 that lined up with a clear, dark sky on 2 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 8.3 and the sky above is clear, this page's live forecast will say so.

Every night you could have seen them, 2015–2025

2 nights in 11 years were clear and dark in Manchester while auroras reached far enough, by our estimate from NASA cloud data and the Kp record. The strongest: 10 May 2024 (Kp 9).

2015none
2016none
2017none
2018none
2019none
2020none
2021none
2022none
2023none
20242 nights
  • 10 May Kp 9
  • 10 Oct Kp 8.7
2025none

A "night you could have seen them" = at least one hour that was dark, mostly clear and with Kp at or above the Kp 8.3 that Manchester 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 Manchester with more good nights a year.

Orkney

2/yr
good nights a year (Manchester: under 1)610 km away · Kp 5.5 needed

Caithness

2/yr
good nights a year (Manchester: under 1)570 km away · Kp 5.7 needed

Isle of Skye

1/yr
good nights a year (Manchester: under 1)500 km away · Kp 6.2 needed

Inverness

1/yr
good nights a year (Manchester: under 1)460 km away · Kp 6.2 needed

Manchester northern lights: questions

Rarely. Manchester sits at 49.9° magnetic latitude, so auroras need about Kp 8.3, which means a geomagnetic storm. Our record (2015–2025) shows 2 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 8.3. We worked that out from Manchester's magnetic latitude (49.9°) 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 Manchester, add the sun and moon, and score each hour of tonight. The verdict is the best hour. How it works explains the calibration.