Alberta
Sky tonight
Whether it is worth going outside, and when. The aurora forecast, how dark it actually gets, what the moon will drown out, and where to go to escape the city glow.
Dark from 11:08 p.m. to 4:07 a.m.
Full astronomical darkness tonight.
The moon (waxing gibbous, 85% lit) is up for 57% of the dark window — bright displays will still show, faint ones will not.
Times are for central Alberta. Darkness starts later and lasts less far north — in midsummer the far north gets none at all.
Where to look, and where to go
The glowing bands are NOAA’s aurora probability for the next half hour. The telescopes are Alberta’s five dark-sky preserves — the darkest skies in the province, and the difference between seeing a dozen meteors and a hundred.
Aurora, by region
Aurora tonight
1/10 in Fort McMurray — Unlikely
Kp 1.7 expected around 11:31 p.m., putting it overhead, showers forecast, moon sets 1:16 a.m.
- Fort McMurray1/10Unlikely
Kp 1.7 expected around 11:31 p.m., putting it overhead, showers forecast, moon sets 1:16 a.m.
Best window 1:16 a.m. – 3:01 a.m.
- Grande Prairie1/10Unlikely
Kp 1.7 expected around 11:44 p.m., putting it low on the northern horizon, chance of showers forecast, moon sets 2:02 a.m.
Best window 2:14 a.m. – 3:14 a.m.
- Edmonton1/10Unlikely
Kp 1.7 expected around 11:08 p.m., putting it low on the northern horizon, showers or thunderstorms forecast, moon sets 1:52 a.m.
Best window 1:53 a.m. – 3:08 a.m.
- Red Deer0/10Nothing tonight
Kp 1.7 expected around 10:59 p.m., putting it just on the northern horizon, if at all, showers or thunderstorms forecast, moon sets 2:03 a.m.
Best window 2:14 a.m. – 3:14 a.m.
- Banff0/10Nothing tonight
Kp 1.7 expected around 10:58 p.m., putting it just on the northern horizon, if at all, showers or thunderstorms forecast, moon sets 2:18 a.m.
Best window 2:28 a.m. – 3:13 a.m.
- Calgary0/10Nothing tonight
Kp 1.7 expected around 10:51 p.m., putting it just on the northern horizon, if at all, chance of showers forecast, moon sets 2:13 a.m.
Best window 2:21 a.m. – 3:06 a.m.
- Medicine Hat0/10Nothing tonight
Kp 1.7 expected around 10:31 p.m., putting it just on the northern horizon, if at all, chance of showers forecast, moon sets 2:05 a.m.
Best window 2:16 a.m. – 3:01 a.m.
- Lethbridge0/10Nothing tonight
Kp 1.7 expected around 10:38 p.m., putting it just on the northern horizon, if at all, chance of showers forecast, moon sets 2:16 a.m.
Best window 2:23 a.m. – 3:08 a.m.
How this score is worked out
Four things decide it, in this order. How far south the aurora reaches, from NOAA's forecast planetary K-index for the hours you'd actually be outside — Alberta sits about six degrees further north magnetically than it does on a map, which is why the northern lights reach here as often as they do. Whether it gets dark — between May and late July the sun never drops far enough below the horizon in central Alberta for the sky to go properly black, and no amount of geomagnetic activity fixes that. Cloud, from Environment Canada's overnight forecast for each region. The moon, which washes out a faint display and barely affects a bright one.
The calculation is fixed and public — the same inputs always give the same score, and no AI is involved in working it out or in wording it. NOAA currently measures 27 GW of power in the northern auroral zone. That figure is shown as corroboration only: unlike the K-index it has no published relationship to how far south the aurora is visible, so it does not enter the score.
Get away from town lights and look north. Quiet nights are the norm, and the aurora is genuinely unpredictable — a forecast is a probability, not a promise.
Space weather from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center; cloud from Environment and Climate Change Canada. Full Alberta forecast →
Alberta’s dark-sky preserves
Designated areas where outdoor lighting is restricted to keep the night sky dark. Alberta has five, including the two largest in the world.
Jasper National Park Dark-Sky Preserve
The whole national park — one of the largest dark-sky preserves in the world.
📍 About 4 hours west of Edmonton
Wood Buffalo National Park Dark-Sky Preserve
The largest dark-sky preserve in the world, straddling northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories.
📍 Remote — the nearest access is Fort Smith or Fort Chipewyan
Beaver Hills Dark-Sky Preserve
Elk Island National Park, Miquelon Lake Provincial Park and the Cooking Lake–Blackfoot recreation area. Alberta's first.
📍 About 45 minutes east of Edmonton — the closest to a major city
Cypress Hills Dark-Sky Preserve
Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, shared across the Alberta–Saskatchewan border.
📍 About an hour southeast of Medicine Hat
Lakeland Provincial Park Dark-Sky Preserve
Lakeland Provincial Park and the adjoining recreation area. Alberta's most recent designation.
📍 East of Lac La Biche, about 3 hours northeast of Edmonton
Meteor showers running now
Perseids
peaks August 12Expect 30–60 an hour at a dark site on the peak night.
Aurora probability from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, United States government work in the public domain. Darkness, moonrise, moonset and moon phase are calculated here rather than fetched, so they are available even when the space-weather feed is not. Dark-sky preserve designations and meteor-shower dates were checked by hand on 2026-08-12; each preserve links the park authority that manages it. Meteor rates are what a real observer can expect at a dark site, not the idealised hourly figures usually quoted. Chasing the aurora? The full aurora map has the forecast on its own.