Best time to see the northern lights in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia
Updated • 21:02 UTC
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk has no recorded aurora opportunity: in the 1996–2026 planetary Kp record the index never reached Kp 9, the threshold this location needs, inside astronomical darkness.
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 Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk forecast shows the actual cloud, moon and darkness right now. Check tonight's forecast for Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk →
🌌 Clear nights a year
0
None on record — under one clear aurora night a year: 0 in a typical year Compare with Russia
🌟 Best Month
None
No month reaches the threshold in this record
🌙 Peak Hours
23:00-01:00
Magnetic midnight
⚡ Required Kp
Kp 9.0+
Served for the live forecast; nights counted at Kp 9, never reached inside Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk's astronomical darkness in this record
🧭 Auroral oval (model)
0.7° above the northern horizon
Model estimate at Kp 9
Month by month in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk
Astronomical darkness, the nights on which planetary Kp reached Kp 9 inside that darkness, the local cloud normal, and what the cloud leaves of the count.
| Month | Astronomical darkness | Opportunity nights | Mean cloud | Clear opportunity nights | Moon-free |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 11.4h | 0 | 82.4% | 54.2% | |
| February | 10.27h | 0 | 79.2% | 55.1% | |
| March | 8.64h | 0 | 73.3% | 55.3% | |
| April | 6.57h | 0 | 68.2% | 53.5% | |
| May | 4.21h | 0 | 72.2% | 55.3% | |
| June | 2.42h | 0 | 75.1% | 55.3% | |
| July | 3.43h | 0 | 78.6% | 53.6% | |
| August | 5.79h | 0 | 75.3% | 56% | |
| September | 7.96h | 0 | 64.1% | 54.7% | |
| October | 9.74h | 0 | 66.8% | 53.4% | |
| November | 11.09h | 0 | 79% | 55.5% | |
| December | 11.7h | 0 | 85.4% | 54.9% |
Similar timing: Thessaloniki , Tucson , Khovd
Higher-odds destinations: Fairbanks , Yellowknife , Tromsø
How these numbers were made
- Evaluated at
- Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 46.9651° N 142.7385° E — darkness and cloud are properties of that point, not of a region.
- Darkness
- Sun at or below 18° under the horizon (astronomical twilight), sampled every 10 minutes across every year of the Kp record and averaged per night of each month rather than on one representative day.
- Geomagnetic record
- GFZ Potsdam planetary Kp index, 3-hourly, 1996–2026 — 89,662 intervals, licensed CC BY 4.0.
- Cloud
- NASA POWER 20-year monthly climatology (2001–2020), 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, equatorward boundary near magnetic latitude 67 − 2 × Kp. A model estimate shown beside the measured record; it never replaces it.
- Clear opportunity nights
- Nights on which at least one 3-hour Kp interval falls inside local astronomical darkness and reaches the count threshold, scaled by one minus the monthly mean cloud amount.
- Kp threshold
- Nights were counted at Kp 9 or higher, the same threshold the live forecast serves.
- Dataset version
- Version 2026-09-07, computed offline from the closed record — the page is regenerated, not forecast.
Kp record: GFZ Potsdam (CC BY 4.0). Cloud normal: NASA POWER. How the live forecast is built: methodology page.
Frequently Asked Questions
When can you see the northern lights in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk?
Not in the 1996–2026 planetary Kp record: the index never reached Kp 9, the threshold Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk needs, while the sky was astronomically dark. Only a storm beyond anything in that record would change it — watch the live forecast rather than the calendar.
What Kp is needed to see the aurora from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk?
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk needs Kp 9, the top of the scale, for any display low on the northern horizon. The NOAA auroral-oval model puts the edge of the oval about 0.7° above the northern horizon at Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk at Kp 9. That is a model estimate, separate from the measured Kp record.
Has the aurora ever been visible from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk?
Not in the 1996–2026 planetary Kp record: the index never reached Kp 9, the threshold this place needs, inside Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk's astronomical darkness.
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