Can I see the northern lights in Boston tonight?
Checking NOAA’s forecast…
Loads live in your browser from NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center and Open-Meteo.
Tonight’s peak—Kp, dark hours
Needed here8.25Kp, NOAA rule
Cloud—Open-Meteo
Dark—sun ≤ −12°
Moon—lit
Next eclipse—NASA tables
Boston and the aurora
Boston sits at 49.5° magnetic latitude. By NOAA’s rule the aurora is overhead here when Kp reaches about 8.25 — in NOAA’s forecast steps, 8.33 or more: a G4 geomagnetic storm.
Tonight in detail
NOAA’s 3-hour Kp forecast for the next three days appears here once it loads, with the hours that are dark in Boston shaded.
When it gets dark enough
Aurora needs the sun at least 12° below the horizon. Hours of that darkness on the 15th of each month in 2026, from the sun’s position: the longest nights are around Dec.
How this is worked out
- Magnetic latitude 49.5°. Traced along Earth’s real magnetic field (IGRF-14) from Boston to the magnetic equator — the construction auroral scientists use (AACGM). A tilted-dipole shortcut can be several degrees off in Europe.
- Kp needed 8.25. NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center: the oval’s equatorward edge sits near 66° magnetic latitude at Kp 0 and moves about 2° toward the equator per Kp step, reaching 48° at Kp 9. That is the line for the aurora overhead; it can be seen lower in the sky from further away.
- Tonight combines NOAA’s live 3-day Kp forecast with Boston’s dark hours and Open-Meteo’s cloud forecast. The sky picture places the aurora’s lower edge (taken as 100 km up) at the height NOAA’s rule implies for tonight’s peak Kp.