Canada · Aurora borealis
Is the aurora visible in Val-d'Or tonight?
Right now
Not tonight.
Kp is 1.3. Val-d'Or needs Kp 7+ for the oval overhead — right now it’s not reaching Val-d'Or.
Tonight's peak is forecast around Kp 5.0 (Minor storm). The forecast still depends on darkness, cloud and the moon at your exact spot.
Reliable about 30 minutes ahead — cloud decides the rest.
Val-d'Or only catches the aurora during strong geomagnetic storms — it needs roughly Kp 7+ for the northern lights to come into view. Here's tonight's live space weather and how to plan around it.
How to see the aurora from Val-d'Or
Face north and find a clear, low horizon in that direction. Everything else — dark skies, adapted eyes, the camera trick — is the same anywhere on Earth, so it lives in the how to photograph the aurora guide.
When can you see the northern lights in Val-d'Or?
Aurora season in Val-d'Or runs roughly September – March. Here the months that pay off are September, March, and August — the table below shows why. See the full best time to see the aurora guide for the season in detail.
Val-d'Or by the numbers
Between Sep 1, 2025 and Aug 31, 2026, Val-d'Or had 365 nights dark enough for the aurora, and the planetary Kp reached the Kp 7+ this place needs on 9 of them. Averaged over 2015–2024 and this location's cloud cover, that works out to about 1 aurora-possible nights a year, most of them in September, March, and August.
| Month | Dark hours per night | Dark nights | Average cloud cover | Aurora-possible nights |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 14 h | 31 | 78% | 0 |
| February | 12.5 h | 28 | 73% | 0 |
| March | 11 h | 31 | 70% | <1 |
| April | 9.3 h | 30 | 68% | <1 |
| May | 7.5 h | 31 | 66% | <1 |
| June | 6.3 h | 30 | 63% | <1 |
| July | 7 h | 31 | 59% | 0 |
| August | 8.5 h | 31 | 62% | <1 |
| September | 10.3 h | 30 | 59% | <1 |
| October | 12 h | 31 | 75% | <1 |
| November | 13.8 h | 30 | 83% | 0 |
| December | 14.3 h | 31 | 85% | 0 |
Sources: the sun's geometry (dark = at least 6° below the horizon), GFZ Potsdam's Kp index 2015–2024 (CC BY 4.0), ERA5 cloud cover via Open-Meteo (the table shows the monthly mean; the estimate counts days that were not overcast). An estimate for comparing places and months, not a forecast — how we estimate this.
Where it’s reliable
