Where to See the Northern Lights in the US: Best States, Places and Times

The best place to see the northern lights in the United States is Alaska – specifically the interior around Fairbanks, which sits under the auroral oval. But you do not have to fly north to have a chance. During geomagnetic storms the aurora regularly reaches the northern tier of the lower 48, from Washington and Montana across North Dakota, Minnesota and Michigan to Maine, and every few years a major storm pushes it far enough south that people in Pennsylvania, Illinois or even Texas see a red glow. This part of our Night Sky Guide covers where to go, what time of night and year to look, how dark the sky needs to be, and what the current state of solar cycle 25 means for your odds through 2027.

The short answer: where the northern lights are most visible

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) boils aurora viewing down to four factors in its tips on viewing the aurora: geomagnetic activity, location, darkness and timing. Location is the one you control most. The rule is simple – go toward the magnetic pole, which currently sits over the islands of northeastern Canada – and then find a spot with an open view to the north. That geometry is why North America is unusually well placed: at the same geographic latitude, the US and Canada are closer to the auroral oval than Europe or Asia.

Region	How often	Activity needed	Best for
Interior Alaska (Fairbanks, Denali area, the Arctic)	Most clear, dark nights in season	Quiet to moderate (Kp 1–3)	A trip built around the aurora
Southern Alaska (Anchorage, Juneau)	Often, on active nights	Moderate (around Kp 2–4)	Combining aurora with a city stay
Northern tier of the lower 48	Several times a year in active years	Minor to moderate storms (Kp 5–6, G1–G2)	Short drives on storm nights
Middle latitudes (New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Oregon)	A few times per solar cycle	Strong to severe storms (Kp 7–8, G3–G4)	Watching storm alerts
Southern states	Rarely	Extreme storms (Kp 9, G5)	Once-in-a-decade events

Alaska: Fairbanks and the interior

If seeing the aurora is the goal of the trip, interior Alaska is the place. Explore Fairbanks, the city's visitor bureau, puts Fairbanks under the "auroral oval" and defines its aurora season as August 21 to April 21. It says the aurora is visible in Fairbanks on average four out of five nights when the sky is clear and dark enough, and that visitors who stay at least three nights and are out during the late evening raise their chance of seeing it to more than 90 percent.

The season dates are about darkness, not aurora activity. In summer the sun barely sets at Fairbanks' latitude, so the sky never gets dark enough. From late August the nights lengthen quickly, and the weeks around the September equinox combine long nights, milder temperatures and – as SWPC notes – a statistical tendency toward stronger geomagnetic storms near the equinoxes. March is the other sweet spot. Midwinter brings the longest nights but also temperatures that can make standing outside for hours a serious undertaking.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute publishes an aurora forecast tuned for Alaska, and our own Alaska aurora page shows tonight's outlook for Fairbanks, Anchorage and Juneau with cloud cover.

The best states in the lower 48

For the contiguous United States, the northern tier is where realistic chances start. NOAA's G-scale lists northern Michigan and Maine as places where the aurora is commonly visible during a G1 storm, and New York and Idaho during G2. In practice, anywhere along the Canadian border with dark skies and a low northern horizon is worth watching on storm nights.

State	Where to look	Why it works
Minnesota	Voyageurs National Park, the North Shore of Lake Superior around Duluth	Far north, big lakes give open northern horizons; Voyageurs is a designated Dark Sky Park
Michigan	The Upper Peninsula (Marquette and the Lake Superior shore), northern Lower Peninsula	Lake Superior's shore faces north with no city glow
Montana	Rural northern Montana, mountain valleys away from towns	High latitude and very low population
North Dakota	Anywhere outside towns on the open plains	Flat horizon in every direction
Washington	The north Cascades and eastern Washington	Northerly latitude; drier skies east of the mountains
Maine	The north woods and the coast away from towns	Northern New England's darkest skies
Wisconsin	Northern Wisconsin and the Lake Superior shore	Needs a slightly stronger storm than Minnesota
Pennsylvania	Cherry Springs State Park	One of the darkest skies in the East; needs a strong storm

The National Park Service says the aurora can appear in Voyageurs National Park any time of year, with better chances in winter because of the longer nights. It recommends an open view to the north and suggests the Ash River Visitor Center grounds, the Meadwood Road Day Use Area and the upper parking lot of the Rainy Lake Visitor Center. In Pennsylvania, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources declared Cherry Springs State Park its first Dark Sky Park in 2000; it sits far enough south that it needs a strong storm, but when one comes, its dark northern horizon makes it a favorite.

You can check tonight's chances state by state on our pages for Minnesota, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Washington and Maine.

Dark skies: why city lights and the moon matter

At mid-latitudes the aurora is usually a faint glow low on the northern horizon, so the darkness of your sky decides whether you see anything. SWPC's advice is to go out at night, get away from city lights, and remember that a full moon diminishes the apparent brightness of the aurora (though not its actual brightness). The National Park Service's Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division measures sky quality with tools such as the Bortle scale, which runs from Class 1, a pristine sky, to Class 9, a severely light-polluted sky where only the brightest dozen or so stars are visible. The NPS notes that only a few areas in the lower 48 have Class 1 or 2 skies; many western national parks are Class 3 or 4, and Class 5 and higher skies are typical around big metro areas.

You do not need a perfect sky. A 30- to 60-minute drive that puts a city's glow behind you and gives you a clear view north – a lakeshore, a field, a hilltop – usually makes the difference. Check the moon before you go: the full moon calendar lists the dates, and the week around a new moon is best.

Best time of night and best time of year

SWPC says the best aurora is usually within an hour or two of local midnight, roughly 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., and that the window widens toward evening and morning as geomagnetic activity increases. During the strongest storms people have seen the aurora begin at nightfall. For the season, SWPC points to the spring and fall equinoxes as a time when larger storms are more common – with the caveat that the number of dark hours shrinks rapidly after the spring equinox and grows rapidly after the fall one.

Season	Northern tier of the lower 48	Interior Alaska
September–October	Good: long-enough nights, equinox storms, mild weather	Excellent: season opens, lakes not yet frozen for reflections
November–February	Good: longest nights, but more clouds and cold	Excellent darkness; extreme cold possible
March–April	Good: equinox storms, nights shortening	Excellent until mid-April
May–August	Possible during storms, short nights	Too light to see the aurora

The best place to see northern lights in November is still Alaska. In the lower 48, November nights are long, but late-fall storm systems often bring extended cloud cover, so watch the cloud forecast as closely as the Kp forecast and be ready to drive toward a clear gap.

Solar cycle 25 in 2026: is it too late?

Aurora activity follows the Sun's roughly 11-year cycle of sunspots and eruptions. On October 15, 2024, NASA, NOAA and the international Solar Cycle Prediction Panel announced that the Sun had reached its solar maximum period, adding that the exact month of the peak can only be identified after a consistent decline. They expected the maximum phase to last another year or so before the Sun entered the declining phase.

SWPC's solar cycle progression data show what has happened since. The 13-month smoothed sunspot number – the standard yardstick – reached 160.9 in October 2024, the highest value of cycle 25 in the record so far, and has fallen since, to 94.4 for March 2026, the latest smoothed value available. Monthly sunspot numbers through September 2026 (preliminary) have been lower still. In other words, cycle 25 is in its declining phase, but nobody can yet stamp an official date on the peak.

Month	Monthly sunspot number	Smoothed sunspot number
October 2024	165.8	160.9 (highest so far)
October 2025	114.8	108.5
March 2026	86.6	94.4
September 2026	60.3 (preliminary)	not yet available

That does not mean the aurora is finished. NASA's announcement noted that scientists often see fairly significant storms during the declining phase of a solar cycle. SWPC says solar cycle 26 is expected to begin sometime between January 2029 and December 2032. For the next couple of winters, expect fewer big storms than in 2024, but still regular G1 and G2 nights for the northern states – and keep an eye on alerts, because the largest storms do not politely follow the sunspot curve.

Beyond the US: Canada, Iceland and Norway

People searching "what country is the northern lights in" are usually comparing trips. The aurora belongs to no single country; it appears wherever the auroral oval passes overhead. In North America that includes northern Canada – Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories sits close to the oval – and in Europe, Iceland and northern Norway around Tromsø. These destinations have the same rules as Alaska: dark months only, clear skies needed, and the best odds around midnight. Our tonight page tracks Yellowknife, Reykjavík and Tromsø next to the US cities.

A northern lights night: practical checklist

• Afternoon: read the forecast – a Kp of 5 or more (G1+) in the 3-day forecast is the signal for the northern tier. Our guide to the northern lights forecast explains how.
• Before dark: pick a spot with an open northern horizon, away from lights, that you can reach legally and safely.
• Weather: check cloud cover for the hours after dark; a clear gap matters more than the Kp number.
• Gear: warm layers, a hat and gloves, a chair, a headlamp with a red setting, a phone tripod and a spare battery kept in an inside pocket.
• On site: let your eyes adapt for 15–20 minutes, look low to the north, and take a test photo – cameras often show green or red before your eyes do. See how to photograph the northern lights for settings.
• Be patient: activity comes in surges; a quiet hour can end in a sudden display.

Nights that bring no aurora can still bring a meteor shower – the Orionids, Leonids and Geminids all peak in the aurora season.

Cover photo: Primmer, Rich and Rose, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wikimedia Commons (public domain).