What to Expect: Seeing the Northern Lights in the Arctic Circle – Tromsø, Norway

February 2024

What to Expect: Seeing the Northern Lights in the Arctic Circle – Tromsø, Norway

One of the main attractions people folk to Tromso for is the opportunity to see the Northern Lights. More than any other place on the planet, Tromso is the premiere spot to get a glimpse of this natural wonder – it is not uncommon for the Aurora Borrelis to be active every day. That being said, it is important to understand a few things and regulate expectations when visiting the Getway to the Arctic. 

The Science

One of the seven natural wonders of the world, the lights have been sought after for many years and only more recently have been understood. In short, the sun has solar flares that send electrically charged ions through space and are carried further away from the sun towards earth by solar wind – the stronger the solar wind, the higher the number of ions that can make it to Earth. Once those ions reach Earth they collide with the magnetic poles and either go up to the north magnetic pole or down to the south magnetic pole. Then those charged ions create an interaction with the gas particles in Earth’s atmosphere and thus create the lights. 

What makes Tromso an ideal destination for seeing the Northern Lights is that this part of the Arctic Circle is at one of the two magnetic poles on earth. In addition to the long winter nights, this makes the probability of seeing this natural phenomenon higher than in other destinations. If there is a clear sky, it is not uncommon to see the lights every night. Just know that despite social media, the lights are not as they appear and are often heavily photoshop’ed. Seeing the lights could be a small pulse in the sky to a giant solar storm. But know that due to the many factors it takes to see the Aurora, it is important to manage your expectations and understand this is a nature.

What it is like to see the Northern Lights 

It is important to know what you are actually looking for and what to expect. Depending on the intensity of the lights, it sometimes can be hard to see the color that you are expecting to see. The camera or phone with night sight is actually a better eye to see the Northern Lights before human eyes can. The first time we spotted the lights, it appeared as a gray wisp in the sky that could easily be missed or mistaken for clouds. But when I took a photo of the lights, it appeared green. The second encounter with the Northern Lights were much stronger and the color was easily seen with our eyes. However, those lights did start as gray wisps as well so it was helpful to have seen them earlier in the trip. Remember, photographs are often heavily photoshop’ed and while you may get lucky to see a giant lights display, you may not see color at all depending on the surge.

Photographing the Northern Lights

Because the camera lens exceeds our eye’s ability to see the Northern Lights, you will definitely want to have a photography plan going into this trip. Do not wait until the night of your tour to figure out how to best work your camera. Phones have become exceptional with night time photography so make sure to do a quick Google search for how to take the best photograph of the Northern Lights and astrophotography with the specific phone you have. If you have a real camera, definitely bring that as well and similarly, if you are not familiar with the settings to take the best photograph of the Northern Lights and astrophotography.

Book with a Tour

It is recommended to book one night of your trip to Tromso with a guide to chase the Northern Lights. There are many tour companies to choose from – who will you put your luck in, your potentially one shot of seeing the Northern Lights on your trip – the stakes are kind of high. Who you pick is really important to your success. Due to the increase in demand, particularly recently due to social media coverage and the headlines indicating that 2024 is “the” year to see the Northern Lights to to increased sun activity, there are many companies that have popped up touting their ability to navigate the complicated factors in getting you to see the Northern Lights. 

After lots of research, I picked Northern Horizons for our trip as they are a very well rated and established company that also offers the use of thermal suits and boots. And it wasn’t just the number of 5 star ratings but the reviews themselves that spoke to how amazing the guides are that mattered. Your guide is the reason you will have success but they can only do so much. Despite belief, the Northern Lights are not guaranteed to appear every night and are in fact, much more complex. Your guide is essential to making sure you have the best chance possible but like all things in nature, it is not promised even if you have the best guide in Tromso. Expectation setting is essential. 

This experience really reminded us of storm chasing. There are many factors that go into a storm making a tornado. The guide’s job is to analyze those factors and find the location that has the highest probability of getting a super cell that has a chance of producing a tornado. Similarly, the Northern Lights guides and analyzes solar activity, solar winds, cloud coverage, direction of the charged ions going north or south, and more to see where in one night has the best chances. These tours last anywhere from six to nine hours long and some tours even end up in another country (Finland especially), to get guests to the best conditions. We heard from travelers earlier in the trip that they did not return to Tromso until 3AM. But even with the clearest sky, if there is no solar activity or strong wind, the lights may not appear. 

A huge benefit with this tour as well was we got photographs from our guide after so even if we completely messed up our photographs from the night, it was great to have a set of professional pictures as well. Here are some from our guide Harry with Northern Horizons:

Seeing the Lights on your own

Booking with a guide is not cheap and while some can splurge on booking more than one, often times people book the tour for one night of their multi-night trip which means you have more opportunities to see the Northern Lights on your own. And seeing them on your own is actually not impossible – even without a car. Do not forget to leverage the bus system that is very efficient and can take you to better viewing spots around Tromso.

First thing is you will want to download the Aurora app and allow for it to push notifications based on your location. Then when the conditions are right, you will get an alert that “if the sky is clear, you might be able to see aurora within the next hour” based on exactly where you are. Most of the other indicators there are hard to interpret if you are not familiar but one thing we learned is that KP does not actually help you determine if your odds of seeing the Northern Lights is high and it is more based on the charts, such as the solar wind. Also, join Facebook groups such as this one where people post if and where they spotted the lights as a way to crowd source efforts.

Make sure your evening activities increase your Aurora chances. Booking a northern lights tour every night is not practical but you do want to keep your chances open every night. Pick some activities that overlap with the nighttime to increase your chance of seeing the Northern Lights. We booked the evening trip to Sami Reindeer Camp where we saw the Lights and an overnight excursion to Camp Tamok to increase our odds as well.

But if the Aurora is strong enough, you can actually see them from Tromso! If the Lights are predicted, go to rooftops of hotels (I read Moxy is a particularly popular spot), up the Fjellheisen Cable Car, or to a bit further out of town to Folkeparken and Telegrafbukta parks. The night we saw the Lights while with the reindeer, Tromso had a great showing of the Lights as well.

I hope this post helps you understand how chasing the Northern Lights works. The more nights you have, the higher your chances of catching them. Best of luck on your journey to see the Northern Lights! 

Read about our trip to the Arctic Circle here!

Read all blog posts for Tromsø, Norway here!

See our complete itinerary here!

Planning your own trip? Read the Perfect Itinerary for Tromsø here!

Our complete packing list to the Arctic here!