Aurora forecast tonight in Missoula
Live northern lights outlook for Missoula, United States — from NOAA's Ovation model and planetary Kp forecast, updated every 15 minutes.
Tonight's verdict
Quiet for now
0%
local probability now
2.0
max Kp next 24h
Kp 5+
what Missoula needs
Activity looks low right now, but substorms flare with little warning. Check back after dark or watch the Kp trend.
Make the quiet useful: get a storm alert first · Film the aurora on iPhone · Aurora tonight
Updated 2026-09-28 06:38 UTC · NOAA SWPC Ovation Prime · Kp now 0.7
Kp forecast — next 24 hours
1.7
06:00
1.7
09:00
1.7
12:00
0.7
15:00
0.7
18:00
1.7
21:00
1.7
00:00
2.0
03:00
Times UTC · bright green = at/above the Kp 5 Missoula needs
Be ready before the next storm hits.
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 Missoula
Missoula sits at 46.9°N geographic, but what decides an aurora is geomagnetic latitude — 53.5°N here. That means the northern lights need a real geomagnetic storm here, roughly Kp 5 or higher. By NOAA's published storm frequencies, Kp 5 is reached on roughly 81.8 nights a year averaged across the 11-year solar cycle — and the years just after solar maximum, where we are now, have historically delivered the cycle's strongest storms.
Kp 3 a camera catches itKp 5 visible to the eyeKp 7 overhead
Watching from Missoula: 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, Missoula needs about Kp 5; Great Falls, 215 km away, needs about Kp 4. On a marginal night that difference decides who sees anything.
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 Missoula
Astronomical darkness
8.7 hours
21:06 – 05:48 local time GMT-6
Local clock times for Missoula, between sunset-dark and first light: the sun more than 18° below the horizon, when faint aurora shows best.
Clouds tonight
Partly cloudy55%
Mean cloud cover across tonight's dark hours. Clouds beat cameras — a clear gap is worth chasing.
Moon
97% lit
A bright moon washes out faint aurora. Strong displays cut through it without trouble.
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Aurora in Missoula: common questions
- What Kp does Missoula need to see the northern lights?
- Three different numbers, depending what you mean. Missoula sits at 53.5 geomagnetic latitude, so a long exposure picks the aurora up low on the northern horizon from about Kp 3, you can see it yourself from around Kp 5, and it stands overhead near Kp 7. Aurora glows 100–400 km up, which is why it clears the horizon from hundreds of kilometres away.
- Is it dark enough in Missoula tonight?
- Missoula gets about 8.7 hours of full astronomical darkness tonight, and the moon is 97% 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 Missoula?
- 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 Missoula?
- 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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