Northern Lights in VermontVisible Tonight?
Real-time aurora forecast updated every 15 minutes
Kp 2.0 is well below the Kp 6 that Vermont 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 Vermont, 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 Vermont local time (EDT), not your device time.
10-Night Aurora Outlook
Planning a trip to Vermont? 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 Vermont
Vermont sits far enough north that the northern lights reach it several times a year, and the Northeast Kingdom is where you go to catch them. The far corner of the state has some of the darkest skies in the eastern United States, with low, open horizons over lakes like Willoughby where a strong storm can throw green light across the water. When a Kp 6 or higher storm lines up with a clear, moonless night, aurora is genuinely within reach from northern Vermont.
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 Vermont 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 Vermont
Aurora season in Vermont runs from late August through mid-April. It is not that the sun quiets down in summer: the sky over the Northeast Kingdom 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 dark far north of the state has been catching photographable aurora on several nights in a typical month, and the biggest storms push naked-eye color across the whole state. Those big nights are exactly what the multi-night outlook above is for: when a Kp 6 or 7 storm is coming, it usually shows up there two or three days ahead.
The Northeast Kingdom advantage
The Northeast Kingdom is Vermont's best aurora ground because it pairs the state's northernmost latitude with its darkest skies. The far corner around Island Pond, Lake Willoughby, and Maidstone scores Bortle 2 to 3, some of the least light-polluted country in the eastern United States. The aurora lives on the northern horizon at this latitude, so the goal is simple: a dark site with nothing bright and nothing tall blocking the view north.
That gives you a rule of thumb: when in doubt, drive until you have an open, dark northern horizon, ideally over a lake. Willoughby's glacial trench and the ponds of the Kingdom give you the flat, unobstructed horizon that valleys and forests hide. A modest storm that reads camera-only from Burlington can turn into visible green from a dark Kingdom lakeshore.
How to read tonight's forecast like a local
From the Northeast Kingdom you generally need about Kp 6 for a naked-eye show and roughly Kp 5 for your camera to catch it; from southern Vermont the bar rises to Kp 7 or more. 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 northern horizon now and then; the camera will pick up an approaching display before your eyes do.