Northern Lights Forecast for Kangerlussuaq

Northern Lights in Kangerlussuaq

Kangerlussuaq is a settlement of a few hundred people in West Greenland, about 50 km north of the Arctic Circle, at the head of a fjord that reaches about 190 km in from the Davis Strait. The ice sheet begins at the top of the valley east of town. What matters most for aurora watching is the dry, stable inland climate: about 170 mm of precipitation in a year, and less than 10 mm a month from December to March.

The road to the ice sheet and Point 660

In 1999 a gravel road was built for Volkswagen, which tested cars in the cold here until 2005. It runs about 35 km east from town to the ice sheet at Point 660, which makes the inland ice a day trip. Night tours drive out along it for the aurora, away from the settlement, and use the Russell Glacier, whose front is about 25 km east of town, as a backdrop.

Muskoxen, caribou and arctic hares live on the tundra around the valley. The muskoxen descend from 27 animals introduced to the area and are often seen around Lake Ferguson and Black Ridge, south of town.

Kellyville and the upper atmosphere

From 1983 to 2018 the Sondrestrom Upper Atmospheric Research Facility, known locally as Kellyville, studied the ionosphere from a site about 15 km west of town. It was run for the US National Science Foundation and the Danish Meteorological Institute, and its 32 m radar dish had been moved here from Chatanika in Alaska. The station’s housing and offices were dismantled in 2023.

Ninety minutes of sun and −25 °C nights

Kangerlussuaq is inside the Arctic Circle but too far south for polar night. On the shortest days the sun clears the horizon for only about an hour and a half around midday. The aurora season runs from October to April, and dog sledding and ice fishing from January to April.

Winter nights here are colder than on the coast further north. February nights average about −25 °C, against about −19 °C in Ilulissat, and the record low is −47.2 °C.

Bluie West Eight and the long runway

The settlement began in 1941 as a US air base, Bluie West Eight, later Sondrestrom Air Base, and the US Air Force left in 1992. For decades its 2,810 m runway, the longest civilian one in Greenland, was where most flights from Europe landed, until Air Greenland moved its Copenhagen flights to the lengthened runway at Nuuk. Air Greenland flies to Kangerlussuaq from Nuuk, about an hour away, and on a seasonal route from Copenhagen. The Kangerlussuaq Museum, across the road from the airport, covers the base years.