See the northern lights
from France, tonight.
Real-time forecast by city, live Kp index, free email alerts when an aurora becomes visible from your location. The same data space agencies use, made accessible.
Source: app.pulsar-si.com
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Get an alert the moment an aurora becomes visible from your location. Kp index, hemispheric power and forecasts in your pocket.
Space weather
The auroral oval, seen from orbit
When the solar wind hits, the ring dips toward France.
See tonight’s forecastBeyond auroras
Another astronomy event to watch
Major event · T-348 days
Solar eclipse - 2 August 2027
Total from southern Spain to Egypt, 6 min 23 s of totality. In France, up to 77% of the Sun covered - per-city times and viewing guide.
Auroras tonight by city
See all →Authoritative live data
Kp index, hemispheric power, solar wind and forecasts. The same data continuously processed by app.pulsar-si.com.
Free personalised alerts
Get an email or notification the moment an aurora becomes visible from your city. Adjustable Kp threshold, free alerts.
Explained plainly
Kp index, solar storm, solar wind, solar cycle: clear guides that skip the jargon.
Can you really see the northern lights from France?
Yes, but rarely, and not everywhere alike. France lies between 42.6° and 52.5° geomagnetic latitude, well below the auroral oval, the ring of light centred on the magnetic pole where aurorae appear almost nightly. For the oval to reach this far south a geomagnetic storm is needed, measured by the Kp index: at least Kp 7 for the north of the country, Kp 9 for the Mediterranean and Corsica.
Those chances are countable. Over the last twelve months the Kp 7 threshold was crossed 9 times. Kp 9, needed in the south, was not reached once, and our archive holds only 4 such nights since 1994, the most recent on 11 May 2024. That is what makes the event memorable when it happens: the May 2024 storm put the aurora within naked-eye reach across almost all of France, as far as the Calanques.
When and where to look
The useful window generally runs from 22:00 to 02:00, around magnetic midnight, and requires full astronomical night. That condition is not a given: north of the Loire, true darkness disappears for part of the summer, from 26 May to 19 July in Dunkirk for instance. You then need a clear northern horizon, since from France the aurora sits low on that horizon, and as little city light as possible.
The best season runs from September to March, when nights are long, with two statistical peaks around the equinoxes. Solar cycle 25, close to its maximum, makes the end of the decade unusually favourable.
How to know whether tonight is the night
A multi-day forecast stays a probability: the arrival time of a coronal mass ejection is uncertain by several hours, and its magnetic orientation, which decides everything, is only known as it nears Earth. The only genuinely reliable signal arrives about thirty minutes ahead, when the solar wind reaches the satellites stationed upstream.
That is why the northern lights tonight page shows the live Kp against each city's own threshold, and why the app sends an automatic alert the moment that threshold is crossed at your address. No calendar replaces continuous monitoring.
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Download the Pulsar app
Get an alert the moment an aurora becomes visible from your location. Kp index, hemispheric power and forecasts in your pocket.