Alaska Northern Lights
A Night Time Show

The Alaska northern lights are brilliantly visible in the winter-time ONLY.



The summers have too much sunlight to see them. So if you want to observe them yourself, you'll need to take an Alaskan winter vacation.

The best time to see them is on a very cold, clear night. When it's really cold, the sky is generally clear because all the moisture freezes out of the air. So when we have -10° F (23.3C) or colder weather, there is a chance you'll get to see the beautiful aurora borealis in Alaska.

I have often run outside in a short-sleeved top, when it was -20° (28.9C) or -30° F (34.4C) outside, to enjoy this beautiful night show. The interesting part is that you don't get cold for some time. I have stood outside like that for 10 to 15 minutes before I actually started feeling cold. The air is so dry, the cold doesn't penetrate.

If you have never seen the northern lights, you are really missing something. They take on different shapes and sizes and movements. I have seen them show up like bands of light being stroked across the sky with a very wide paintbrush. Then one side of the band will add more bands of light to it, while the other side of the band fades away, giving the impression of a light moving across the sky. Sometimes there is a curving base line of light from which it looks like a paintbrush stroked the light up into the depths of the sky until the light fades away, like paint fading from the brush.

When I was in 5th grade, every grade school in the Anchorage area had an outdoor ice skating rink. During the school year, from around late October to late March, we could usually ice skate during every recess. And we had 3 half-hour recesses per day because we had long school days. So we got lots of ice skating practice.

One year our school put on an ice skating show outside in the early evening. That means it was definitely dark outside, since the sun went down sometime between 2:00 PM and 3:00 PM. There were many skaters in their lovely skating outfits. They had just begun their performance when the northern lights showed up. And though the northern lights are usually white or have just a little color in them, this particular aurora borealis was full of many colors, seemingly designed just for our show.

Never since then have I seen a multi-colored northern lights display like that, in Anchorage.

If you want to see the Alaskan northern lights often while you're vacationing in Alaska, the best place to do that is in the Fairbanks area. Many of their displays are even more dramatic and beautiful than those in the Anchorage area.

So step outside at night, even if it's a bit cold, and look for the Alaska northern lights on your winter vacation here! You'll probably be rewarded with an unusual lighting display that grows, changes and moves into different shapes and colors, like you've never seen before!

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