Northern Lights Forecast for Belfast

Northern Lights in Belfast

Belfast sits at the head of Belfast Lough where the River Lagan meets the sea, with Divis, Black Mountain and Cave Hill rising to the north and north-west. On an active night a faint glow can show low in the north from the north coast or the lough shore; a display you will clearly see with your eyes needs a G1 minor storm or stronger. In the strongest storms the lights have been photographed all over Northern Ireland, from the Giant’s Causeway to back gardens.

Divis and the Black Mountain

In big storms hundreds of people have climbed these National Trust hills on the north-west edge of the city to get above the glow, and the Irish News has printed reader photos from west Belfast. Divis is the highest at 478 m, with a car park on the Divis Road.

Phone cameras in night mode pick up colour the eye does not, so the sky can look grey while the photo is pink and green; see the guide to photographing the aurora with an iPhone.

Helen’s Bay and Crawfordsburn on the lough

About 10 miles east on the Bangor side, Crawfordsburn Country Park and Helen’s Bay have small beaches facing north across Belfast Lough, and photos from Crawfordsburn have made the papers in big storms. Helen’s Bay has a station on the Belfast to Bangor line.

The Causeway Coast and Davagh Forest

Ballycastle is 55 miles from Belfast, with Pans Rocks at the far end of its beach. Whitepark Bay, Dunluce Castle and the two-mile Portstewart Strand are on the same coast, all with open sea to the north. Allow an hour and a half.

The OM Dark Sky Park and Observatory in Davagh Forest, in the Sperrins of County Tyrone, became Northern Ireland’s first International Dark Sky Park in 2020. It lies beyond Cookstown, 47 miles west of Belfast, and is far darker than anywhere near the city, but it is inland, so for the aurora the north coast gives the cleaner horizon. The same storms are seen from Dublin.