Northern Lights Forecast for Anchorage

Northern Lights in Anchorage

Anchorage is Alaska’s largest city, about 291,000 people at the head of Cook Inlet at 61°N. For the aurora it has two handicaps: it is about 3.5 degrees of latitude south of Fairbanks, so the oval usually sits to the north rather than overhead, and the maritime climate makes winter skies cloudier. Visit Anchorage puts the season at mid-August to April.

Glen Alps and Point Woronzof

The city is bright, so people drive out. Glen Alps is a Chugach State Park trailhead at 2,200 ft, 20 minutes from downtown, with a parking fee. It looks west and north over the city and Cook Inlet, with the glow below you rather than in front. Point Woronzof, a coastal park at the city’s northwest corner past the airport, has an open view north over Knik Arm.

A faint display that looks gray to the eye shows green and pink in a phone’s night mode; see the iPhone aurora guide.

The Glenn Highway: Eagle River, the Knik flats and Eklutna Lake

Eagle River is about 13 miles northeast off the Glenn Highway, and the Eagle River Nature Center at the end of Eagle River Road is an entrance to Chugach State Park. Farther out, the Knik River and the Palmer Hay Flats at Glenn Highway mile 30.6, about 32 miles from town, have no mountains on the northern horizon, so a low aurora shows here when the Chugach hides it elsewhere. Eklutna Lake is about 35 miles northeast, at the end of Eklutna Lake Road from Glenn Highway mile 26; the lake road is narrow and winding with no shoulders.

Hatcher Pass and the Palmer-Fishhook Road

Hatcher Pass, about an hour and 20 minutes north in the Talkeetna Mountains, is partly open in winter: the summit road closes from fall until around July, but the paved Palmer-Fishhook Road stays open to within a mile of Independence Mine State Historical Park.

Fur Rendezvous and the Iditarod start

Fur Rendezvous, the winter carnival dating from 1935, runs from late February into early March with sled dog races, outhouse races and the Running of the Reindeer downtown. The Iditarod’s ceremonial start follows on the first Saturday of March on Fourth Avenue.

The 360 miles north to Fairbanks

Fairbanks is about 360 miles north of Anchorage on the Parks Highway, past Denali at mile 237, or 12 hours on the Alaska Railroad’s Aurora Winter Train, which runs north on Saturdays and back on Sundays from mid-September to mid-May.