Interior Alaska
Fairbanks Aurora Forecast
Most aurora forecasts give you a Kp number and leave you to guess what it means from your driveway. This one scores every one of the 18 sites we watch, led by the ones around Fairbanks: Cleary Summit and Murphy Dome above the valley cloud, Ester Dome, Chena Hot Springs, Fox, Fairbanks itself, North Pole, Nenana and Delta Junction, in that order, ahead of the Southcentral towns. It weighs the thing that actually decides most nights here: cloud. A strong display above solid overcast is a display you will not see.
Reading the sky.
Why Fairbanks
Fairbanks sits much further under the auroral oval than Southcentral does, so a night that only reaches Anchorage on a strong display sits over Fairbanks on plenty of ordinary ones. The Interior's winter inversion adds to that: the hills above town, Cleary Summit and Murphy Dome among them, often sit in clear air while the valley below holds cloud, which is why they lead this list rather than the town itself.
How the score is worked out
Five things multiply together: how far south the aurora band reaches over a site, how clear its sky is, whether it is properly dark there, how bright the moon is, and whether the solar wind is pushing. The lowest of those is what limits the night, and it is the one the page names. A score can never read 100, because the sky does not offer certainty.
About this page
This page watches the aurora for Fairbanks and the towns around it, using the same live call as Daymingo's statewide Alaska aurora forecast, ordered so the Interior sites come first. For the rest of what Daymingo covers around Fairbanks, see the Alaska forecast, trails and camping hubs.