Northern Lights Forecast for Reine

Northern Lights in Reine

Reine is a fishing village of about 300 people on Moskenesøya, the last island in Lofoten that the road reaches, at 67.9°N. The E10 runs past it on a chain of low bridges and ends about 10 km further south at Å. At this latitude the aurora often reaches well up the sky even when activity is low, which matters here, because steep mountains rise from the water around the village and hide the lower part of the sky.

Hamnøy bridge, Reine harbor and Skagsanden

• The bridge at Hamnøy. About 3 km north-east of Reine on the E10, the bridge looks north across the water to the red rorbuer (fishermen’s cabins) at Hamnøy, with Festhelltinden behind. Photographers line it on any night with a forecast, and its street lamps are bright enough that a faint display is hard to see by eye from the deck. Park in the area just before the bridge, not on the road.
• Reine harbor. From the waterfront you look north across the fjord to Olstinden, with the cabins and cod-drying racks of Sakrisøy just along the road.
• The north-side beaches. Yttersand, past the Fredvang bridges, and Skagsanden at Flakstad are about half an hour north on the E10. Skagsanden faces north-west to north toward the open sea, a far wider horizon than Reine, though an aurora that drifts west can still slip behind the mountains.

The chain across the Reinebringen trail

The stone staircase up Reinebringen, nearly 2,000 steps laid since 2016, is a summer hike. Visit Lofoten strongly advises against it in the winter half of the year. The steps lie under snow and ice, avalanches come off the rock slabs on the upper part of the route, and a chain across the trailhead by the Ramsvik tunnel warns winter hikers off.

Cloud, not cold, and a short polar night

The climate is mild and wet. February averages about −0.5 °C and around 2,300 mm of rain and snow falls in a year, most of all in October, so cloud costs more nights than cold does. The sun stays below the horizon from about the second week of December to the first week of January.

Moskenes, Leknes and the end of the E10

The car ferry from Bodø docks at Moskenes, about 5 km south of the village, after a little over three hours across Vestfjorden, with fewer sailings in winter. Leknes airport is about an hour’s drive north-east (60 km) and Svolvær about two hours (125 km); both have flights from Bodø. Buses run the E10 to Å, where much of the village is taken up by the Norwegian Fishing Village Museum.