Will I see the northern lights in Yellowknife tonight?
Maybe
Clear spells and enough aurora activity line up around 18:00. Look north, away from lights.
Hour by hour tonight
Loading tonight's hours…
Times are local (America/Edmonton). Only hours with the sun below −6° are shown. Kp forecast: NOAA SWPC. Clouds: MET Norway.
Planning a trip to Yellowknife?
In 2015–2025, Yellowknife averaged 173 good nights a year out of 188 clear, dark ones. The best month was February: 100% of 4-night stays saw auroras at least once.
Chance on a 4-night stay, week by week
By month
| Month | Dark / night | Clear & dark | 1 night | 3 nights | 4 nights | 7 nights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| August | 3.8 h | 1.9 h | 50% | 84% | 91% | 98% |
| September | 7.7 h | 3.6 h | 61% | 91% | 94% | 100% |
| October | 10.9 h | 3.7 h | 49% | 81% | 86% | 95% |
| November | 13.4 h | 4.4 h | 55% | 86% | 91% | 96% |
| December | 14.0 h | 7.5 h | 70% | 94% | 97% | 99% |
| January | 13.7 h | 8.1 h | 74% | 97% | 99% | 100% |
| February | 11.8 h | 8.5 h | 86% | 99% | 100% | 100% |
| March | 8.7 h | 6.1 h | 82% | 99% | 99% | 100% |
| April | 4.6 h | 2.6 h | 59% | 88% | 91% | 97% |
"Clear & dark" = average hours per night with the sun below −12° and mostly clear sky. Odds = share of stays with at least one clear, dark hour when auroras were strong enough here.
Chance of at least one clear, dark night with auroras strong enough to see, from what really happened in the same week in each of 11 years.
Aurora tours from Yellowknife
A guide with a car can drive to wherever the clouds break, which beats any forecast. On a cloudy night that is often the difference between seeing nothing and seeing a show.
Yellowknife northern lights: questions
Yes. Yellowknife sits at 68.4° magnetic latitude, where auroras show on almost every clear night, even when activity is quiet. In 2015–2025 it averaged 173 good nights a year: clear, dark and active enough.
February: a 4-night stay then had at least one good night 100% of the time. Nights are dark enough from August to April. The best hours are usually around local midnight.
Hardly any. Yellowknife sits at 68.4° magnetic latitude, under or even poleward of the usual auroral oval, so auroras can show at Kp 0–1. We worked that out with a rule calibrated against the Finnish Meteorological Institute's sighting statistics. On quiet nights look north or straight up; on active nights the aurora can sit south of you.
In February, 2 nights gave 97%, 4 nights gave 100%, 7 nights gave 100% odds of at least one good night (2015–2025). Clouds come in spells, so more nights help more than you might think.
Every 10 minutes we take NOAA's Kp forecast and MET Norway's hourly cloud forecast for Yellowknife, add the sun and moon, and score each hour of tonight. The verdict is the best hour. How it works explains the calibration.