Alaska Aurora Cams, Live

What these cameras are

• Fairbanks Aurora Camera is Explore.org’s live video from the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Large Animal Research Station on the north edge of town. It is the one to leave running: real-time video, so you see an arc brighten and break up as it happens.
• Poker Flat is the colour all-sky camera at Poker Flat Research Range, the university’s rocket range up the Chatanika valley north-east of Fairbanks. The fisheye shows the whole sky at once, so an arc that sits too far north for the video camera still appears near the edge of the circle. By day it is a white disc; that is normal.
• Toolik Lake is the same kind of instrument on the North Slope, past the Brooks Range at the university’s Toolik Field Station beside the Dalton Highway. It is black and white and 3.5° of latitude further north, so on a quiet night it often shows aurora overhead while Fairbanks sees it only in the north.
• Dumpling Mountain in Katmai National Park is a bear camera most of the year. On dark, clear autumn nights during a storm it looks out over Naknek Lake under aurora, but it runs on Explore.org’s seasonal schedule, so it is sometimes off the air in deep winter.

The two all-sky cameras refresh every minute or so rather than streaming video. Comparing them is the quickest way to judge where the oval is tonight: aurora at Toolik but not Poker Flat means it is sitting north; the reverse means it has pushed south toward Fairbanks and beyond.

The Kp you need, town by town

The University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute publishes a free Alaska-specific aurora forecast on the same Kp scale, with a map of where the oval is expected each night. It is the local source to check alongside NOAA’s numbers on this page.

When to watch in Alaska

Season: from about the third week of August to mid-April around Fairbanks. From late April to mid-August the nights never get dark enough, and the ranking above will show these cameras in twilight even at 2 a.m. On the North Slope the dark season is shorter at both ends.

Time of night: Alaska is far west in its time zone, so local magnetic midnight comes late, around 01:00–02:00 Alaska Standard Time. The best window is usually 22:00 to 03:00. Early-evening arcs often grow into the main display after midnight, so a quiet camera at 21:00 is not a verdict on the night.

Where to watch around Fairbanks

Ten minutes out of town is enough. Cleary Summit on the Steese Highway and Murphy Dome to the north-west are the classic high points with a clear northern horizon; the Chena Lakes Recreation Area near North Pole and the Creamer’s Field refuge are closer and flat. Chena Hot Springs Resort, about 60 miles north-east, has dark skies and somewhere warm to wait. For a bigger trip, the Dalton Highway north to Coldfoot and Wiseman puts you under the oval in the Brooks Range, with a long drive on gravel in winter. From Anchorage, head out of the city lights to Glen Alps, the Knik River valley or Hatcher Pass, and wait for Kp 3 or more.

Weather: cold and clear inland, cloudy on the coast

Interior Alaska’s winter skies are clear because the air is cold and dry, and high pressure can sit over the valley for days. The price is temperature: −20 °C to −40 °C nights are normal from December to February, and in Fairbanks itself the coldest spells bring ice fog from the town, so drive out of it. The south coast around Anchorage, Valdez and Juneau is milder and much cloudier, which is why most aurora trips are based in Fairbanks. The cloud figure on each camera above is the current model value for that spot.

Getting there: Fairbanks International Airport has year-round flights via Anchorage and Seattle, and the Alaska Railroad’s winter Aurora train runs between Anchorage and Fairbanks.