A beau­ti­ful auro­ra borea­lis shot by Mikko Lager­sted. This pho­to is taken in Kil­pis­jär­vi, Finland.

It has many names. Auro­ra borea­lis. Nort­hern lights. Polar lights. In Fin­nish, ‘revon­tu­let’ means liter­al­ly ‘fox fires’, named after an arc­tic fox, that runs through the night and lights up the sky with its tail. They are beau­ti­ful­ly colou­red, typi­cal­ly bright green but also vary­ing with hints of red, pur­p­le and yellow.

Auro­ras have car­ri­ed lots of mea­nings through time. They’ve been mys­ti­cal, pro­phe­ti­cal and pro­mi­sing omens. Some peop­le belie­ve they bring good luck, some peop­le swe­ar for the oppo­si­te. As beau­ti­ful and exci­ting as they are, the­re are still a few facts that you should know about auro­ras not to get disap­poin­ted if you tra­vel to look for them in Fin­nish Lapland.

Alt­hough auro­ras are belie­ved to be some­thing magi­cal and unusu­al, they are a natu­ral phe­no­me­non. They get for­med by dis­tur­ban­ces in the magne­to­s­phe­re. The­se bursts in the upper atmo­s­phe­re are cau­sed by solar wind. By fol­lowing Sun’s acti­vi­ty, the Nort­hern lights beco­me qui­te pre­dic­ta­ble. Char­ged par­ti­cles hit­ting the Earth’s atmo­s­phe­re give out ener­gy that shows in vary­ing colour and complexity.

Auro­ras are beau­ti­ful to look at and many peop­le tra­vel to Fin­nish Lapland espe­cial­ly for them. The most pres­sing ques­ti­on always is when can you see auro­ras, when do they occur? The deepest win­ter is your choice. This is bet­ween late Novem­ber and February.

Even though it is said that auro­ra sea­son starts in August, the pro­blem for see­ing any is the amount of day­light still fli­cke­ring in the sky. Ano­t­her pro­blem with Autumn sea­son is the wea­ther, as Fin­land tends to be rai­ny and clou­dy bet­ween Sep­tem­ber and Novem­ber. Howe­ver, slow­ly lacking day­light and clea­ring crisp nights help tre­men­dous­ly when going out­doors for auro­ra spot­ting during late evenings.

As you want to see the auro­ra, you need to pre­pa­re not only the right time of the year to see them but also the right time of the day. Best time to see the auro­ra is bet­ween the mid­ni­ght and the fol­lowing hours after it. Natu­ral­ly, this requi­res a good nap during the day in order to stay awa­ke for the night.

The Fin­nish Meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal Insti­tu­te shows accu­ra­te data in 10-minu­te inter­vals about the pro­ba­bi­li­ty of geo­ma­gne­tic acti­vi­ty on their web­site. If you see red (like in the pho­to below), go out­side to a place without arti­fi­cial ligh­t­ing and see what’s hap­pe­ning. Typi­cal­ly, nort­hern lights can be seen in the Nort­hern ski­es, so always face North.

From the web­site of FMI you can fol­low the geo­ma­gne­tic acti­vi­ty and know if the auro­ras are high­ly likely to be visible.

Lap­pish peop­le don’t hunt the auro­ras. We always say, it is a beau­ti­ful extra for the day if we hap­pen to see any. They are not visi­ble often, not even every week so as a tra­vel­ler remem­ber to keep your expec­ta­ti­ons rea­listic. Often unex­pec­ted things hap­pen when you least expect them!