Northern Lights Forecast for Luleå

Northern Lights in Luleå

Luleå is the capital of Norrbotten, a city of about 50,000 where the Lule River reaches the Bothnian Bay, about 110 km south of the Arctic Circle. The bay holds less than a tenth of the Atlantic’s salt, so the sea freezes every winter, and for aurora watching that is what Luleå has: flat, open ice a short walk from the center. Visit Luleå gives the season as late August to the first days of April.

Gäddvik, Ormbergsbacken and the shore at Sinksundet

Visit Luleå’s winter guide lists eight aurora spots around the city. The local photographer Per Lundström picked three of them:

• Gäddvik, about 5 km west of the center where the E4 crosses the Lule River. His spot is by the salmon fishing museum and the small barn next to the pier, dark and with the river in front.
• Ormbergsbacken, the ski slope on Ormberget at the edge of town, inside a nature reserve that buses run out to. From the top you see quickly whether anything is happening, with the city lights below.
• Sinksundet, a dark stretch of shore with open sky in every direction.

The ice track and the ice road to Hindersön

Once the ice around the center is about 40 cm thick, the city plows a track of roughly 10 km from the north harbor round to the south harbor and out to the island of Gråsjälören. January averages about −9 °C here.

Further out, ice roads go to the inhabited islands when the ice allows, usually from January to April. The longest runs about 15 km from Hindersöstallarna, another spot on the guide’s list, to Hindersön, Stor-Brändön and Långön. Parking on the ice roads is not allowed, so watch from the shore or the islands, and the roads can close for a while in heavy snow, thick fog or when water floods the ice.

Gammelstad, where Luleå started

Luleå was founded in 1621 about 10 km up the river at Gammelstad, and moved to the coast in 1649 after land uplift left the harbor too shallow. The stone church from 1492 stayed, with more than 400 wooden cottages around it where churchgoers from far away stayed overnight. The church town has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996, and city buses run out to it.

The ore port at the end of the Malmbanan

The first ore train came down from Gällivare in 1888, and by 1903 the line ran on through Kiruna to Narvik, 473 km from Luleå by rail. Regional trains run up it to Gällivare and Kiruna, and night trains go south to Stockholm. Luleå Airport is at Kallax, about 7 km south of the center.