AngelMayCry

Hi Friends,

I am planning to travel to the North European countries for aurora during Thanksgiving. It seems that it is easy to have lots of cloud in late November. My question is about the coverage area of cloud.

If I see 99% cloud coverage at night in Tromso from several weather sites, would it be generally not practical at all for those tours to drive away from the city and find somewhere without cloud? For example, this website says that Tromso would be cloudy for the next 10 days, so better to avoid all these days?

https://www.yr.no/en/forecast/daily-...B8/Troms%C3%B8

I understand that this "depends" but just wonder the possibility, because I would depart from the U.S. and need to book in advance. Thank you.

smf_ltn

Finding lights is always a risky adventure. The better tour operators will drive as many as 200 miles away from the city in pursuit of clear skies. You, and the operator, need to spend time and effort to improve the odds. Never a guarantee, so Good luck. We just spent 8 days in Iceland, clouds every night but one, and no lights. But we did not go just for lights, so it was a good trip.

fransknorge

Going for the lights in November is risky, your chances are lower than in February where the sky is statistically clearer.

Out of my Element

Tour guides know where the lights are shining as they are in touch with each other. They are also much better at driving on Arctic roads in pitch black night and know safe places to park off the side of the road so you are not a danger to other drivers.

Hezu

Actually you can get public weather space information which helps to know whether there is a chance that auroras occur or not. See eg. Space Weather in Finland. Weather forecasts and observations (including satellite imaginery for clouds) are also easily available, so figuring out if you might have a chance to see northern lights is not that hard.
Sometimes it might be also a good idea to be bit persistent and not give up if the conditions first look poor: about week ago there was a significant magnetic storm that allowed northern lights also for slightly more southern latitudes, sadly the skies were mostly cloudly (at least in Southern Finland), but luckily there happened to be few gaps in the cloud cover at times, so at times it was still possible to see the aurora.
But of course, figuring out the most suitable locations for observations might require some local knowledge, so hiring a local guide might be indeed a good idea.

PS. And one warning: often when observed with naked eye auroras may look somewhat less spectacular than what they look in the photos.

Out of my Element

All good points. But the forecasts (both Aurora and cloud) are always "maybes", which is why getting real time info from guides is your best bet to seeing the lights. And using your camera is excellent advice to later see what you saw.

Signed,

A guy who has tried it on his own on 12 nights in "lights season" with zero sightings