Northern lights tonight in Finland
Finland sits at about 67° magnetic latitude, so the aurora reaches it from roughly Kp 0.0 — most clear dark nights. The card below reads NOAA's oval, tonight's dark hours, the cloud and the Moon for Kilpisjärvi right now.
Finnish Lapland is the continental side of the same oval Tromsø sits under, and its advantage is exactly that it is not on the coast: inland air in January is dry and still, the cloud that shuts Norway often ends at the fell line, and the cold is the price. Kilpisjärvi at 69° north sees aurora on roughly three nights in four when it is clear; Saariselkä and the Inari lake district are the resort belt with dark sky ten minutes from any hotel; Rovaniemi on the Arctic Circle is two degrees further from the oval and needs Kp 3 for a proper display rather than Kp 1. Lake ice from December gives a horizon as flat as the sea.
The oval now, pole to 40°, Finland's meridian at the bottom. Dashed: tonight's forecast Kp.
Reading NOAA…
Kilpisjärvi
rows: dark · oval · clear · no Moon — the window is the run of green hours
Reading NOAA…
Where to go in Finland
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.
- Kilpisjärvireading the atlas…—Verdict at this site →
- Saariselkä, Inarireading the atlas…—Verdict at this site →
- Rovaniemireading the atlas…—Verdict at this site →
Kp now and the three nights ahead
Camera settings for this aurora
From the oval's brightness right now and the exposure law.
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 from the 2025 IGRF dipole; the Kp threshold from NOAA's viewing table.