Northern Lights in Atlantic Canada

When can you see the Northern Lights? What time?

There is one satellite which tracks solar storms heading towards Earth. The two determining factors will be the speed of the solar wind (after all, the wind was given off by an event that actually happened on the sun) and the power within it. When ever that solar wind from the sun starts to hit earth, things will start. Usually when the solar storm starts hitting this satellite, you got an hour to be ready.

You also need to take into consideration the moon phases. If it is a full moon, the moon will be giving off much more light vs if it is a New Moon.

The northern lights are extremely unpredictable, so don’t always count on them showing up. Plenty of times there was supposed to be a big solar storm but the storm turned out to be a dud.

Where are my favourite spots to see the Northern Lights?

Prince Edward Island: Anywhere along the North Shore. I like to start off at Covehead Harbour and go East or West depending on the cloud situation. Preferably go West since you can get a bit further North if you make it to Tignish.

Mainland Nova Scotia: Baxters Harbour, Blomidon Lookoff or near Arisaig. If I am exhausted or feeling lazy, maybe Lawrencetown.

Cape Breton: Anywhere in the National Park tho I would also like to see them at the Fortress of Louisbourg.

New Brunswick: Bathurst to Caraquet is my favourite drive however I do have a composition lined up for Cape Jourimain National Wildlife Area, if they become strong enough.

Newfoundland: Lobster Cove, or any of the Gros Morne Campsites. But if I’m in Newfoundland, I am probably heading to L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site. Of it is April-July, anywhere there is an iceberg.

What are the current forecasts?

I use a couple of different websites. One is the NOAA Forecast, see image below.
The WDC for Geomag has a graph of the current wind speed or Spaceweather has some good data.

SoftServeNews has been around for ever. They always have storm information on the front of their website.

Aurorastatus has updated their website to make it extremely friendly to lookup data anywhere in Canada.