Northern Lights Forecast for Inverness

Northern Lights in Inverness

Inverness is the northernmost city in the UK and the base most people use for the Highlands of Scotland. It sits at the mouth of the River Ness, where the Great Glen meets the Moray Firth. On an active night a camera may find a glow low in the north from outside the city, but a display you will clearly see with your eyes usually needs a G1 minor storm or stronger, and even then it sits low over the northern horizon.

The Moray Firth, not Loch Ness

Loch Ness runs south-west from about 6 miles outside the city, between the hills of the Great Glen, so the long view down the loch faces away from the north. The water that helps is the Moray Firth, which puts an open horizon to the north and north-east within a few minutes of the centre.

• Chanonry Point: Over the Kessock Bridge on the Black Isle, a spit between Fortrose and Rosemarkie with a lighthouse at its tip, known for its dolphins and open to the firth. Fortrose is about 6 miles north-east of the city, roughly half an hour by road.
• Nairn: About 17 miles east and clear of the city’s lights, with two long beaches and some of the driest weather in Scotland.
• Culloden and Clava Cairns: About 5 miles east, the battlefield and the Bronze Age Clava Cairns are open ground with little light, and the Highlands Astronomical Society has its JSL Observatory nearby. By day the National Trust for Scotland’s visitor centre covers the 1746 battle.

Fort George, 11 miles north-east on a spit in the firth, is the other daytime visit on this shore, with the Highlanders’ Museum inside its walls.

Tomintoul to the south-east, Dunnet Head to the north

The Tomintoul and Glenlivet Dark Sky Park in the Cairngorms National Park has held gold-tier International Dark Sky Park status since 2018. Tomintoul sits at 345 m beyond Grantown-on-Spey, about an hour and a half’s drive from Inverness, and is one of the coldest and snowiest villages in the UK.

The A9 runs about 110 miles north to Thurso and Scrabster; allow three hours. From Dunnet Head, the northernmost point of mainland Britain, Orkney is about 9 miles away across the Pentland Firth, and the ferry from Scrabster crosses to Stromness in Orkney.

The sleeper, the airport station and the Highland lines

Inverness Airport is 8 miles north-east of the city with its own railway station, linked to the terminal by bus. Trains run from Edinburgh and Glasgow, the Caledonian Sleeper comes overnight from London Euston, and the lines to Thurso and Kyle of Lochalsh start here. Portree on Skye is about two and a half hours’ drive west.