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Checking the NOAA OVATION feed

Region

Northern lights in Canada, Iceland and Norway

Answer

This page compares three featured towns outside the United States: Yellowknife in Canada's Northwest Territories, Reykjavik in Iceland and Tromsø in northern Norway. All three sit at or above the Kp 0 oval edge on the IGRF-14 dipole.
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Glow towns

The towns side by side

Canada, Iceland and Norway: geomagnetic latitude, storm level and darkness, 2026
TownDipoleEdge overhead atTypical G levelDec 15 nightNo civil nightDark season
Yellowknife68.5°Kp 0No storm (Kp 0)16.6 hMay 25 to July 16280 days
Reykjavik68.8°Kp 0No storm (Kp 0)17.0 hMay 17 to July 25269 days
Tromsø67.5°Kp 0No storm (Kp 0)19.2 hApril 27 to August 14239 days
Dipole latitude from IGRF-14. Edge: SWPC's 66 minus 2 per Kp rule. Storm needed: none at 60 degrees or more, G1 or less from 55 to 60, else the first NOAA level whose typical latitude reaches the town. Darkness from SunCalc; dark season is Glow's 4 evening hours bar.

What the numbers say about Canada, Iceland and Norway

In Canada, Iceland and Norway, Reykjavik sits highest on the dipole at 68.8 degrees and Tromsø lowest at 67.5, a spread of 1.3 degrees or about 145 km. By SWPC's oval-edge rule that means Kp 0 for Reykjavik and Kp 0 for Tromsø.

On December 15 civil night runs from 19.2 hours in Tromsø to 16.6 in Yellowknife. On June 15 the same towns have 0.0 (Yellowknife), 0.0 (Reykjavik), 0.0 (Tromsø).

Yellowknife has no civil darkness from May 25 to July 16; Reykjavik has no civil darkness from May 17 to July 25; Tromsø has no civil darkness from April 27 to August 14.

These towns sit at or poleward of the oval's average edge even at Kp 0, and inside the 60 to 75 degree band where SWPC's aurora page says aurora can be seen on more than half of the nights of a year. What limits them is light and weather. Each loses civil darkness around the June solstice, Tromsø for the longest. There is no live cloud forecast outside NWS coverage, so their pages pair darkness and the OVATION cell with NASA POWER's long-term cloud average.

Month pages for these towns

Questions

Is Tromsø or Reykjavik better for the northern lights?
Reykjavik sits higher on the geomagnetic dipole; Tromsø has longer winter nights and a longer midnight sun gap. See Tromsø vs Reykjavik.
Why is there no live cloud forecast for these towns?
Glow reads live cloud forecasts only from the US National Weather Service, which does not cover Canada, Iceland or Norway. The town pages show NASA POWER's 2001 to 2020 cloud average instead, labelled as an average.
What Kp do towns in Canada, Iceland and Norway need?
By SWPC's oval-edge rule: Yellowknife Kp 0, Reykjavik Kp 0, Tromsø Kp 0.
When is it too light for aurora in Canada, Iceland and Norway?
Yellowknife: May 25 to July 16. Reykjavik: May 17 to July 25. Tromsø: April 27 to August 14.
Which town in Canada, Iceland and Norway has the longest December night?
Tromsø, with 19.2 hours of civil night on December 15.

Sources and verification

Quoted figures last checked against their sources on 2026-09-30; next review 2026-12-31. Computed figures come from SunCalc and the IGRF-14 dipole as described in the methodology. Every quote is listed in the sources ledger.