Northern lights forecast tonight in Alaska

A working village of a dozen or so people 18 km north up the Dalton Highway, at 67.4°N and under the auroral oval. No street lighting at all, and the Koyukuk valley keeps the northern skyline low.

Seven kilometres north of Coldfoot, a Bureau of Land Management campground sits at Mile 180 of the Dalton Highway with a cleared gravel loop and a wide gap in the spruce to the north. Coldfoot's few lights stay behind the trees from here.

The gravel apron outside the visitor centre is a two-minute walk from the truck stop, with the Dalton Highway corridor open to the north. At 67.25°N you are already inside the auroral oval, so driving further buys very little.

An open former dairy field on the north edge of town with an unobstructed northern horizon, and the only spot here you can reach without a car. It sits at the edge of the city's light dome, so it rewards a moderate or strong display rather than a faint one.

At 680 m on the Steese Highway, high above the valley cold pool and well outside the city light, with open views over the Tanana Valley. Use the free public pullout between mileposts 20 and 21 — the lodges at the summit are private and charge.

The highest point near Fairbanks at 877 m, with a full 360° horizon and no town light in any direction. The last few miles are gravel; four-wheel drive is the sensible choice in midwinter.

Mile 15 of the Denali Park Road, at 800 m where the spruce gives out and the tundra leaves the northern horizon clear. Private vehicles reach it from late April until the first snow, which covers the August and September end of aurora season.

A rest area and trailhead at Mile 13, 830 m up, with open ground on every side and no town glow anywhere on the northern horizon. The road is usually plowed this far from about 15 February, which reopens it for late-winter aurora.

The Chugach State Park trailhead lot sits at 671 m above the Anchorage Bowl, reached by O'Malley Road off the Seward Highway. You look down on the city glow rather than through it, with the northern sky open past Knik Arm.

West of downtown, a bluff about 37 m above Knik Arm puts water and the Alaska Range across the northern half of the sky. The airport is next door, and its lights cost you the faintest displays.

A fishing access off the Old Glenn Highway where the Knik River valley opens north with no mountains in the way. Far enough from Anchorage that the glow is a low band behind you rather than overhead.

Tidal flats at the mouth of the Eagle River, 35 km up the Glacier Highway, with Lynn Canal open to the north-west. About the clearest low northern horizon within reach of town, though rainforest cloud closes it most nights.

A wooded point in the Auke Village Recreation Area with Favorite Channel open to the north and west. Juneau's lights are twenty kilometres away to the south-east, which matters at 58°N where the aurora usually sits low.

Skater's Cabin Road runs to a parking area on the lake shore, with the glacier and the Mendenhall Towers across the water. The peaks stand high in the north, so this rewards an overhead display more than a horizon arc.