Northern lights tonight in Colorado
Colorado sits at about 49° magnetic latitude, so the aurora reaches it from roughly Kp 8.5 — very rare: only the strongest storms, a handful of nights a decade. The card below reads NOAA's oval, tonight's dark hours, the cloud and the Moon for Pawnee National Grassland right now.
Colorado is a storm-only state: at 48–49° magnetic latitude the Front Range needs Kp 8, a G4, which happened several times in 2024–25 and made the searches. When it does come, the place to be is the north-east plains — Pawnee Grassland and Jackson Lake have a bare horizon toward Wyoming and Denver's dome 100 km behind you. Cameron Pass is darker but its northern horizon is mountains, which matters when the arc is at 4°. On a G4 night the display can reach the zenith even here and the reds dominate; on anything less, expect a low camera-only glow and set your expectations by the live number, not the headline.
The oval now, pole to 40°, Colorado's meridian at the bottom. Dashed: tonight's forecast Kp.
Reading NOAA…
Pawnee National Grassland
rows: dark · oval · clear · no Moon — the window is the run of green hours
Reading NOAA…
Where to go in Colorado
Three sites a photographer would drive to, each with its measured ground darkness from the light pollution atlas and its own verdict for tonight. Coordinates are approximate: a viewpoint, a shore, a car park.
- Pawnee National Grasslandreading the atlas…—Verdict at this site →
- Jackson Lake State Parkreading the atlas…—Verdict at this site →
- Cameron Passreading the atlas…—Verdict at this site →
Kp now and the three nights ahead
Starting settings if aurora is visible
NOAA's hemispheric power measures activity across the hemisphere, not brightness at your pin. These exposure starting points do not guarantee a sighting; check the local viewing window and sky, then adjust a test photo.
Bright, moving aurora smears at anything over about 4 s: open the aperture or raise ISO rather than lengthen the shutter.
Plan the sequence · stack the night when you are back · the photography guide →
Other places
Sources
Aurora grid, Kp, solar wind and alerts: NOAA SWPC, read live by your browser. Cloud: MET Norway (CC BY 4.0), which receives the site's coordinates rounded to two decimals. Ground darkness: this site's atlas. Magnetic latitude: AACGM-v2 at 110 km (IGRF-14); the Kp threshold from NOAA's viewing table.