Aurora on Svalbard: daytime aurora, polar night and polar bears

Svalbard is the one place in Norway where you can watch the aurora at noon. In the darkest part of the polar night, roughly mid-November to late January, it stays dark around the clock, so both the dayside aurora and the familiar evening aurora can be seen. At the same time, Longyearbyen lies slightly north of the part of the auroral oval that produces the biggest evening displays, so set your expectations accordingly: Svalbard is about long dark days and unusual forms rather than a guaranteed sky-wide explosion.

Why the aurora is different at 78 degrees north

The aurora follows a ring around the magnetic north pole, the auroral oval. Over Northern Norway the oval typically sits overhead in the evening and at night. Longyearbyen is at about 78 degrees north geographically and around 76 degrees magnetic latitude (our calculation with the AACGM magnetic coordinate model). In the evening you will therefore often see the aurora to the south or low over the horizon rather than straight overhead. Visit Svalbard, in an article reviewed by UNIS aurora researcher Jøran Moen, describes Svalbard as lying slightly north of the main oval, with aurora that is often weaker and more diffuse than further south.

In return, around midday Svalbard sits beneath what scientists call the polar cusp: a funnel in Earth's magnetic field on the dayside where particles from the solar wind get almost direct access to the upper atmosphere. That is what produces the dayside aurora.

Dayside aurora: red, faint and unique

The dayside aurora forms differently from the evening aurora. According to the Fram Centre in Tromsø, nightside aurora is dominated by green light from around 120 km altitude, while dayside aurora is dominated by red light from around 250 km. The particles arriving on the dayside carry less energy, so the light is produced higher up, where the red oxygen emission dominates. Our article on aurora colours explains the physics.

What does that mean in practice?

• Dayside aurora is often faint and diffuse. It rarely looks like the sharp green arcs you know from Tromsø photos.
• Red light is hard for the eye to see in the dark. A camera collecting light over several seconds often records it more clearly than you see it.
• It needs real darkness, which in practice means the darkest part of the polar night.

The dayside aurora is precisely why Svalbard became a hub for aurora research. The Kjell Henriksen Observatory (KHO), run by the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), sits on the mountain Breinosa about 15 km from central Longyearbyen, 520 m above sea level. It is a research facility, not a visitor attraction, and according to the observatory the last part of the road is snow-covered for most of the year.

Dark season and polar night: when is it dark enough?

On Svalbard locals distinguish between the dark season (Norwegian: mørketid) and the polar night (polarnatt), and the difference matters for aurora hunters:

Visit Svalbard says the dark season lasts 113 days in Longyearbyen, compared with 49 days in Tromsø. During the civil polar night the sun never climbs higher than six degrees below the horizon. There is still a faint blue twilight to the south around noon, but the mountains around Longyearbyen hide much of it.

For the evening aurora Visit Svalbard suggests 6 pm to midnight, plus a second window in the early morning between 4 and 8 am. In December and January you can, in principle, see aurora at any hour. See our guides to the best time of year and the best time of night for how this compares with the mainland.

Why a high Kp is not always better on Svalbard

On the mainland you quickly learn that a higher Kp index means better chances. On Svalbard it is more complicated. When geomagnetic activity rises, the auroral oval expands southward, away from the polar region. NOAA describes the oval's southern edge moving about two degrees of latitude towards the equator for each step on the Kp scale. During a big storm the best aurora may therefore be over Northern Norway, while from Svalbard you see it low in the south.

That does not make storm nights a waste on Svalbard. It means the Kp number alone tells you less here than in Tromsø, and local data is more useful. UNIS runs its own aurora forecast showing the oval and the sky as seen from Svalbard, and Visit Svalbard recommends pairing a forecast like that with the Yr weather forecast. Cloud cover is usually what decides the night. More in our article on clouds and clear skies.

Polar bears: what the rules say

This is the biggest difference from the mainland. Outside the settlements on Svalbard you can meet polar bears, in winter and in the dark too.

• Section 30 a of the Svalbard Environmental Protection Act requires anyone travelling or staying outside settled areas to know how to protect themselves against polar bear attacks and to carry suitable means of scaring and chasing bears away. People on organised tours are exempt, because the tour operator carries that responsibility.
• The Governor of Svalbard (Sysselmesteren) advises carrying a firearm, primarily a rifle, in addition to scaring devices such as a flare gun, and practising with both.
• Since 1 January 2025 it has been illegal to approach closer than 300 m to a polar bear, and 500 m between 1 March and 30 June.

For most visitors the conclusion is simple: join a guided aurora tour, or stay within the settlement. Light pollution in town makes faint aurora harder to see, but that is far better than walking into the dark alone. If you are unsure where the settled area ends, ask at the tourist information office or check the Governor's website before you go.

Cold, wind and gear

The weather on Svalbard changes quickly, and it is often the wind that makes the cold hard to handle. Store norske leksikon, the Norwegian national encyclopedia, gives the mean temperature of the coldest month, usually February or March, as around minus 15 °C in the inner fjord areas of Spitsbergen. Wind chill can make it feel much colder.

Dress as described in our safety and clothing guide: wool next to the skin, windproof outer layers and spare mittens. Camera batteries and phones drain fast in the cold, so keep spares in an inside pocket. For settings, see our guide to photographing the aurora with a camera.

In short

• Svalbard has dayside aurora during the darkest polar night, roughly 14 November to 29 January. It is often red, faint and diffuse.
• The evening aurora is often seen to the south, because Longyearbyen lies north of the main oval. A high Kp is not automatically better here.
• Check the cloud forecast, and use a local aurora forecast as well as Kp.
• Special polar bear rules apply outside the settlements. Go with a guide unless you have the right equipment and training.
• If you are on the mainland instead, check tonight's verdict for your location.