Imagine spending thousands of euros on your dream holiday to Finnish Lapland, hoping for that once in a lifetime moment of seeing the magical northern lights…and then flying back home without seeing jack sh*t.

Unfortunately, this ends up being true for a lot of people who visit Lapland.

Quite often it comes down to incredibly bad luck where the weather will be cloudy for a week or two at a time, making it impossible to see the aurora anywhere at all. Most of the time though, it’s just a lack of understanding about how to properly hunt the aurora.

It might be cloudy in Rovaniemi but clear skies and an amazing aurora show are only 20km away. It might be a completely clear night but there’s no aurora happening and you give up 30 minutes before it actually happens.

Here’s the most common mistakes people make when aurora hunting in Rovaniemi and how to avoid them. If you’d like a more comprehensive guide, download our free ebook which dives into everything you need to know about aurora hunting in Finnish Lapland.

Relying on simple weather apps

“If you can’t see stars, you can’t see aurora.” You’ll most likely hear this phrase a million times when you come to Rovaniemi, the golden rule for aurora hunting.

When it’s cloudy in Rovaniemi the weather app on your phone says it’s going to be cloudy all night, most people give up there and assume it’s just cloudy everywhere. Personally, I’ve had guests in the past who said they looked at the weather app on their iPhone and saw that Monday had the cloud icon next to it, so they assumed it would be cloudy all day. Monday night was almost perfectly clear and we saw amazing auroras that night.

Instead of relying on simple weather app, download the app that every aurora hunter in Rovaniemi actually uses to find clear skies: Windy.com

In Windy, there is a cloud coverage tab where you should compare the ICON-EU and ECMWF models which are the most accurate weather models for Lapland. You can also check out webcams in different areas to assess how accurate the models are, or even better, check out aurorawebcams.com to see if there’s clear skies and aurora already happening.

When you use Windy, you’re much more likely to identify an area where you should be able to find clear enough skies to see aurora.

Giving up too early and not checking real time aurora indicators

The skies are clear, the weather gods are in your favour, but aurora hasn’t shown up yet….

After standing around for 15 minutes and seeing nothing, a lot of people will just give up and go back to the warmth of their hotel. The next day, they’ll be reading about the amazing northern lights show that happened 30 minutes after they left and regret every decision they have ever made in their life.

This disappointment can be avoided with a simple understanding of aurora indicators, primarily the Bz component of the magnetic field, which you can view in all aurora forecasting apps like SpaceWeatherLive and My Aurora Forecasts & Alerts. When the Bz is negative, it means there’s likely aurora on the way or already active. The stronger the negative, the better. If it is between -3bz to -6bz, you can expect light to mild aurora displays. Towards -20bz, you can expect the mind blowing northern lights shows you’ve dreamed of seeing. If it’s an even stronger negative beyond -20 bz, it’ll be so spectacular that it’s going to alter your brain chemistry.

The Bz charts are real time so the current reading on the right side of the chart is aurora conditions that still haven’t happened on earth, they have just passed the DSCOVR or ACE satellite and are still on their way to earth. Depending on the speed of the solar wind, you can expect those conditions to result in aurora usually within 30 minutes to 2 hours.

Staying too close to the city

Being around any source of light pollution is going to reduce your ability to see aurora. That being said, you still can see aurora in the dead centre of Rovaniemi when it is strong enough.

A lot of people also walk down to the park next to Arktikum which is the darkest place within walking distance of the town centre, but you will still see the streetlights on the other side of the river and the glow of the city. You can see aurora shows there quite easily on clear nights, but it just does not compare to what you can see in an area without any light pollution.

It only takes about a 15 minute drive out of Rovaniemi in most directions for the street lights to run out. After that, you are truly out in the wilderness of Lapland where there is no light pollution. Here you will see the northern lights at their best.

Not knowing how to spot aurora

When the northern lights are faint, they can be easy to miss. They can easily be mistaken for a faint cloud sometimes. If you are under clear skies and there is a suspicious looking cloud or part of the sky, just point your phone camera at it. If the image on your camera turns green, congratulations, you’ve spotted aurora. If the image turns yellow or orange, it’s going to be reflections from street lights. If the image turns white, it’s cloud.

Not dressing properly

Lapland is a brutally cold place during the aurora season, Rather Chilly one might say. When you’re outside watching or waiting for aurora, you’re probably not moving around too much either. This means that you’re going to get cold quite easily if you’re not overdressed for the current conditions.

When the temperature gets below freezing, here’s how you should dress when aurora hunting:

thermal base layer (for both body and legs)
two thick layers (sweater + jumper)
winter jacket
two pairs of socks (merino wool)
waterproof shoes (snow boots recommended when temperature is less than -10c)
snow pants
beanie + gloves
balaclava / ski mask / face protection (for extremely cold temperatures)

As the temperature gets colder beyond freezing, it’s all about adding layers. Always bring extra layers with you in the event that you begin to feel too cold.

Booking the wrong tour

There’s a lot of aurora hunting tour options available in Rovaniemi and it can be hard to choose the right one at the right price point. Here’s some questions you should be asking when assessing different tour options:

Do you have a strict time or kilometre limit?
What happens if there’s no aurora?
Do you move to find clear skies?
Will I get professional photos of myself with the aurora?
How many people are on the tour?

When you ask these questions, it becomes pretty clear which choice makes sense on certain nights. A lot of tours only go to one place every night no matter what the weather conditions look like. This might make sense to do on a night where the weather conditions look good, but it’ll make more sense to take a tour with a larger time and kilometre limit on the night where the clouds provide a bit of a challenge.

Staying in Lapland for only one or two nights

When you stay in Lapland for a very limited time, your chances of seeing aurora are significantly reduced. There’s a lot of luck needed in seeing aurora because you need to have good solar wind conditions happening at the same time when you have clear enough skies to actually see aurora. The more nights you spend in Lapland, the more chances you’re going to get to see a stunning northern lights show

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For more comprehensive tips on how to hunt aurora during your time in Finnish Lapland, download our free ebook which you’ll find in the navigation bar at the top of the page. You’ll also get a 20 euro discount per person when you book a tour with Rather Chilly!

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