Northern Lights in New YorkVisible Tonight?
Real-time aurora forecast updated every 15 minutes
Kp 2.0 is well below the Kp 6 that New York needs, so the aurora stays too far north tonight.
Verify with the live sky camera →No clear chance in the next 10 nights; forecasts update several times a day, so check back.
Tonight, Hour by Hour
The four things that must line up over New York, and how each hour of the night looks.
Kp 2.0 now, Kp 6 needed here
0% cloud cover around 10 PM
Dark from 10 PM
Dark rural skies; moon 8% lit
All times shown in New York local time (EDT), not your device time.
10-Night Aurora Outlook
Planning a trip to New York? Peak activity, cloud cover, and darkness for the nights ahead.
Kp ~ marks nights beyond NOAA's precise 3-day forecast, estimated from the 27-day outlook. Treat the far nights as a rough guide, not a promise.
Seeing the aurora in New York
The best place to see the northern lights in New York is the Adirondacks, where Tupper Lake, Lake Placid, and the far-north country hold some of the darkest skies east of the Mississippi. Up here the aurora needs a strong storm of about Kp 6 to climb over the northern horizon, but when it does the displays mirror off the lakes. Down in New York City the lights are effectively never visible: the latitude is lower and the sky glow overwhelms all but the rarest extreme storm.
Our verdict is not a Kp number. The Kp index is a global, three-hour average, and treating it as a promise is the single biggest reason people drive out and see nothing. Instead we check four things for New York specifically: whether forecast activity reaches the level this latitude needs, whether the sky will be clear, whether it will actually be dark, and how much moonlight and local light pollution will wash out. Only when all four line up do we say yes.
When to go: aurora season in New York
Aurora season in New York runs from late August through mid April. It is not that the sun quiets down in summer: the sky over the Adirondacks simply never gets dark enough for long enough in June and July. The strongest months are historically around the equinoxes, September, October, and March, when Earth's magnetic field connects more efficiently with the solar wind and the same activity produces bigger displays.
Through the current solar maximum the Adirondacks have been getting photographable aurora on a handful of nights in a typical month, and the biggest storms push naked-eye color across much of upstate. Those big nights are exactly what the 10-night outlook above is for: when a Kp 6 or 7 storm is coming, it usually shows up there two or three days ahead.
Where to look: the Adirondacks and the north country
The best aurora skies in New York are in the Adirondacks and the north country near the Canadian border. The aurora lives on the northern horizon at this latitude, so the places that deliver are the ones with dark skies and an open view north: Tupper Lake and the Adirondack Sky Center, the St. Lawrence shore at Massena, and the Lake Champlain shore near Plattsburgh. The Adirondack Park holds some of the darkest skies east of the Mississippi, second in the region only to interior Maine.
The far-north lakeshores add the one thing the mountains cannot: a flat, unobstructed horizon over water. Robert Moses State Park at Massena sits at the very top of the state, and Point Au Roche near Plattsburgh looks north and east over Lake Champlain. When in doubt anywhere upstate, drive until open water or an open field fills your view north; a modest night that reads camera-only in town can turn into visible green pillars from a genuinely dark shore.
How to read tonight's forecast like a local
From the northern Adirondacks you generally need Kp 6 for a naked-eye show and about Kp 5 for your camera to catch it; downstate and around New York City the bar rises to an extreme Kp 8 or 9. Regulars know the Kp number is only the entry ticket: a clear north horizon and real darkness matter just as much, which is why the verdict above folds cloud cover and twilight into one answer instead of making you juggle three apps.
On a promising night, get out early, give it two full hours, and let your eyes dark-adapt for 15 minutes without looking at your phone. Displays arrive in substorms: bursts of 15 to 40 minutes with quiet gaps in between. Point night mode at the north horizon now and then; the camera will pick up an approaching display before your eyes do.