Aurora forecast tonight in Juneau
Live northern lights outlook for Juneau, United States — from NOAA's Ovation model and planetary Kp forecast, updated every 15 minutes.
Tonight's verdict
Worth watching tonight
0%
local probability now
2.0
max Kp next 24h
Kp 1+
what Juneau needs
There's a real chance if skies are dark and clear. Auroras are often bright to a camera before they're visible to the eye.
Make the quiet useful: get a storm alert first · Film the aurora on iPhone · Aurora tonight
Updated 2026-09-27 22:21 UTC · NOAA SWPC Ovation Prime · Kp now 0.3
Kp forecast — next 24 hours
1.7
21:00
1.7
00:00
2.0
03:00
1.7
06:00
1.7
09:00
1.7
12:00
0.7
15:00
0.7
18:00
Times UTC · bright green = at/above the Kp 1 Juneau needs
Aurora possible over Juneau tonight — be ready to film it.
When you're finally standing in the cold under the night you've waited years for, there are no retakes — the sky does its show once and moves on. So pack the jacket, pack the thermos, and pack the one thing that makes the night eternal: the only iOS astrophotography app built for auroras. Long after the trip, you'll still have the display itself, moving, in 4K.
- ✦ Set it down and it arms itself
- ✦ 4K timelapse + a still from the session
- ✦ Aurora intelligence tunes every capture
- ✦ Tracks the aurora live — no extra app
- ✦ Apple Watch companion
- ✦ Pay once, own it forever
What it takes to see the aurora from Juneau
Juneau sits at 58.3°N geographic, but what decides an aurora is geomagnetic latitude — 61.6°N here. That puts the northern lights overhead regularly: even quiet conditions around Kp 1–2 can bring them out, so on a clear night you mostly need darkness and patience.
Kp 1 a camera catches itKp 1 visible to the eyeKp 3 overhead
Watching from Juneau: get clear of streetlights with an open northern horizon, give your eyes fifteen minutes to adapt, and concentrate on the hours around local midnight, when activity statistically peaks. The season runs from late August to mid-April, and activity climbs measurably around the equinoxes.
For comparison, Whitehorse, 270 km away, needs the same Kp 1 — so on a marginal night, drive toward darker skies, not toward latitude.
One rule every chaser learns the hard way: the camera sees it first. An arc that reads as grey haze to your eyes is already green in a one-second exposure, so point a camera at the northern sky before deciding there is nothing there — one tap in Aurora Lens runs that check and films whatever answers.
Read next: Aurora with any phone · Film the aurora on iPhone · Aurora tonight
Tonight's sky over Juneau
Astronomical darkness
7.6 hours
20:59 – 04:40 local time GMT-8
Local clock times for Juneau, between sunset-dark and first light: the sun more than 18° below the horizon, when faint aurora shows best.
Clouds tonight
Overcast95%
Mean cloud cover across tonight's dark hours. Clouds beat cameras — a clear gap is worth chasing.
Moon
98% lit
A bright moon washes out faint aurora. Strong displays cut through it without trouble.
Best spots to see the northern lights in Juneau
Places locals and guides actually name, with what each one gives you.
Eagle Beach State Recreation Area
35 km north-west · car
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.
Point Louisa
20 km north-west · car
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.
Mendenhall Lake
16 km north-west · car
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.
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Aurora in Juneau: common questions
- What Kp does Juneau need to see the northern lights?
- Three different numbers, depending what you mean. Juneau sits at 61.6 geomagnetic latitude, so a long exposure picks the aurora up low on the northern horizon from about Kp 1, you can see it yourself from around Kp 1, and it stands overhead near Kp 3. Aurora glows 100–400 km up, which is why it clears the horizon from hundreds of kilometres away.
- Is it dark enough in Juneau tonight?
- Juneau gets about 7.6 hours of full astronomical darkness tonight, and the moon is 98% lit. Both matter: a bright moon or a sky that never fully darkens will hide a faint display.
- When is the best time of year for aurora in Juneau?
- The season runs from late August to mid-April. Activity peaks statistically around the equinoxes, in late September and again in March, and the hours around local midnight are the most productive on any given night.
- Can an iPhone photograph the aurora in Juneau?
- Yes, and it will usually show more than your eyes do. A long exposure gathers colour that human night vision cannot. Filming it moving needs an app built for the job; Aurora Lens does that and saves a 4K timelapse plus a still frame.
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