Best time to see the northern lights in Park City, Utah
Park City gets under one clear night a year — 0 in a typical year. Only an extreme storm brings the aurora within reach: aurora needs Kp 9 or higher, which the planetary index last reached on 29 October 2003. October carries the most of that thin history, at 0.02 clear nights in a typical year, which is not a month worth booking.
These are typical-year figures: a 1996–2026 planetary Kp record crossed with a 2001–2020 cloud normal. They describe a normal year, not tonight — the live Park City forecast shows the actual cloud, moon and darkness right now. Check tonight's forecast for Park City →
🌌 Clear nights a year
0
Storm nights only — Under one clear aurora night a year: 0 clear nights in a typical year.
🌟 Best month
October
0.02 clear nights in a typical year — a storm night, not a season
⚡ Kp needed
Kp 9
Horizon threshold; last reached 29 October 2003
🧭 Auroral oval (model)
34.3° above the horizon
Model estimate at Kp 9, magnetic latitude 47.6°
Month by month in Park City
Astronomical darkness, the nights on which planetary Kp reached Kp 9 inside that darkness, the same count over the current solar cycle alone, and what the local cloud normal leaves of the long-run figure.
| Month | Astronomical darkness | Opportunity nights | Since 2023 | Mean cloud | Clear opportunity nights | Moon-free |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 11.15h | 0 | 0 | 59.6% | 53% | |
| February | 10.24h | 0 | 0 | 63.5% | 53.3% | |
| March | 8.94h | 0 | 0 | 63.3% | 53.5% | |
| April | 7.36h | 0 | 0 | 61.9% | 55.2% | |
| May | 5.74h | 0 | 0 | 56.4% | 54.7% | |
| June | 4.8h | 0 | 0 | 37.2% | 50.3% | |
| July | 5.33h | 0 | 0 | 38.5% | 52.7% | |
| August | 6.87h | 0 | 0 | 39% | 57.2% | |
| September | 8.47h | 0 | 0 | 34.5% | 55.5% | |
| October | 9.88h | 0.03 | 0 | 44.5% | 53.9% | |
| November | 10.94h | 0 | 0 | 54.7% | 53.6% | |
| December | 11.43h | 0 | 0 | 63.2% | 53.3% |
Opportunity nights are the whole 1996–2026 record. In the current solar cycle alone (since 2023), October has averaged 0 rather than 0.03.
- October: 9.88h of astronomical darkness a night
- October: 0.03 nights reach the Kp threshold inside that darkness
- October: 44.5% mean cloud leaves 0.02 of them clear
- October: 53.9% of those nights are moon-free
Nearby in Utah
The strongest locations in the same state, by clear aurora nights a year.
- Salt Lake City — 0 clear nights a year, Kp 9
How these numbers were made
- Evaluated at
- Park City, 40.6461° N 111.498° W — darkness and cloud are properties of that point, not of a region.
- Darkness
- sun geometric altitude at or below -18 degrees (astronomical twilight). 10-minute samples across every year of the Kp record (1996-2026), averaged per night of each month rather than sampled on one representative day.
- Geomagnetic record
- GFZ Potsdam planetary Kp index, 3-hourly, 1996-01-01 to 2026-09-07 — 89,661 intervals, licensed CC BY 4.0.
- Cloud
- NASA POWER SYN1DEG 20-year Meteorological and Solar Monthly & Annual Climatologies (January 2001 - December 2020), parameter CLOUD_AMT. A monthly mean, not a forecast.
- Moon
- A night counts as moon-free below 35% lunar illumination while the moon is up.
- Auroral oval
- NOAA auroral oval — model estimate, reported separately. The figure for this location is above, beside the measured record it never replaces.
- Clear opportunity nights
- clear opportunity nights = nights on which at least one 3-hour Kp interval falls inside local astronomical darkness and reaches the location’s horizon threshold, scaled by (1 - monthly mean cloud amount)
- Dataset version
- Version 2026-09-07, computed offline by seo-ops scripts/aurora-usa-best-time-data.ts.
The same dataset for every tracked city and state is published at US Aurora Season Climatology, and how the live forecast is built is on the methodology page. Kp record: GFZ Potsdam (CC BY 4.0). Cloud normal: NASA POWER.
Frequently asked questions
When can you see the northern lights in Park City?
There is no season for it. Park City averages 0 clear nights of aurora a year across the 1996–2026 Kp record, so the answer is whenever an extreme storm happens to fall on a dark, clear night. October holds the most of that history, at 0.02 clear nights in a typical year. Watch the live forecast rather than the calendar.
What Kp is needed to see the aurora from Park City?
Park City needs Kp 9 or higher for aurora on the northern horizon, Kp 9 for a noticeable display and Kp 9 for a bright one. The NOAA auroral-oval model puts the edge of the oval about 34.3° above the northern horizon at Park City at Kp 9. That is a model estimate, separate from the measured Kp record.
Has the aurora ever been visible from Park City?
Yes. In the 1996–2026 planetary Kp record the index reached the horizon threshold for Park City, Kp 9, most recently on 29 October 2003. Whether anyone saw it also depended on the cloud, moonlight and darkness of that night, which the Kp record does not carry.
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