Aurora forecast tonight in Montreal
Live northern lights outlook for Montreal, Canada — 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 4+
what Montreal 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 08:13 UTC · NOAA SWPC Ovation Prime · Kp now 1.7
Kp forecast — next 24 hours
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
1.7
06:00
Times UTC · bright green = at/above the Kp 4 Montreal 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 Montreal
Montreal sits at 45.5°N geographic, but what decides an aurora is geomagnetic latitude — 54.8°N here. That means the northern lights appear during moderate activity: from about Kp 4 they climb above the northern horizon, and a strong storm can put them overhead.
Kp 2 a camera catches itKp 4 visible to the eyeKp 6 overhead
Watching from Montreal: 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, Montreal needs about Kp 4; Burlington, 116 km away, needs about Kp 5. 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 Montreal
Astronomical darkness
8.8 hours
20:22 – 05:09 local time GMT-4
Local clock times for Montreal, between sunset-dark and first light: the sun more than 18° below the horizon, when faint aurora shows best.
Clouds tonight
Overcast80%
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.
Chasing the lights from Montreal
Montrealers learned in May 2024 that on a monster storm you can catch colour from a back deck on Île-Perrot — but that was the first G5 in twenty years. On an ordinary alert the island's glow flattens everything, so people head west: Cap-Saint-Jacques or l'Île-Bizard for a dark stretch of Lac des Deux Montagnes, Oka when you want real darkness, Mégantic when you're serious. The visitor mistake is climbing Mount Royal — the Kondiaronk lookout faces straight south over downtown, the brightest possible direction. Face north over water instead, go between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m., and let your phone's night mode tell you whether that grey shimmer is actually the show. Most winters, it never is; that's the honest part.
Best spots to see the northern lights in Montreal
Places locals and guides actually name, with what each one gives you.
Parc-nature du Cap-Saint-Jacques
28 km west · car
The nature park at the island's far western tip points you north over Lac des Deux Montagnes — the one direction that matters — with most of the city's glow at your back. It's the closest thing to a dark northern horizon without leaving Montreal, which is why the local night-sky listicles keep naming it. Count on driving (transit takes over an hour and thins out at night), budget the roughly $8 parking, and know the park officially closes at 10 p.m. — early for aurora hours, so check before you commit.
Parc national d'Oka
39 km west · car
About 45 minutes out the 640, Oka is the first place the island's light dome really lets go, and it shows up on every local list of places to watch the sky. The big beach faces south over the lake, so you're not here for a water horizon to the north — you're here because the sky is dark enough that a moderate storm reads as colour instead of grey.
Parc national du Mont-Mégantic (ASTROLab)
189 km east · car
The serious answer: the world's first International Dark-Sky Reserve, about two and a half hours east in the Eastern Townships, with the ASTROLab running public astronomy evenings at the base of the mountain. The reserve's own scientific coordinator tells CBC about solar-maximum auroras strong enough to shoot from a Sherbrooke sidewalk — up here, away from every light, you get the whole show. It's a car trip and often a book-ahead one, so check the ASTROLab calendar before you drive.
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Aurora in Montreal: common questions
- What Kp does Montreal need to see the northern lights?
- Three different numbers, depending what you mean. Montreal sits at 54.8 geomagnetic latitude, so a long exposure picks the aurora up low on the northern horizon from about Kp 2, you can see it yourself from around Kp 4, and it stands overhead near Kp 6. Aurora glows 100–400 km up, which is why it clears the horizon from hundreds of kilometres away.
- Is it dark enough in Montreal tonight?
- Montreal gets about 8.8 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 Montreal?
- 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 Montreal?
- 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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