Northern Lights Forecast for Portland

Northern Lights in Portland

Portland is at 45.5°N where the Willamette meets the Columbia, with cloudy, wet winters and dry summers. The aurora is a rare visitor, and on most nights it reaches this far south it is a faint band on the northern horizon that a camera picks up and the eye barely does.

Council Crest, Mount Tabor and Rocky Butte

A red or green glow low in the north can show from a dark spot during a G3 strong storm. A display that climbs the sky over the city takes a G4 severe storm. In the strongest storms photos have come from Council Crest, Mount Tabor, Hillsboro, Lake Oswego and Estacada. Night mode on a phone shows color the eye misses when the north looks gray; see how to photograph the aurora with an iPhone.

Rocky Butte in Northeast Portland is a 613-foot cinder cone with Joseph Wood Hill Park on top and a view north to Mount St. Helens. It is still inside the city glow but the quickest high spot.

Sauvie Island’s flat horizons

Sauvie Island, about 10 miles northwest of downtown off US 30, is flat farmland and wildlife area with long, low horizons. The wildlife area, beaches included, closes to visitors late in the evening.

L.L. “Stub” Stewart State Park, about 35 miles west off Route 47 near Buxton, is where OMSI holds its star parties.

The Gorge viewpoints and Larch Mountain’s winter gate

• Vista House at Crown Point, about 25 miles east on the Historic Columbia River Highway, stands 733 feet above the Columbia with the river and the Washington shore below to the north. The Women’s Forum lookout just before it is where crowds drive out in the strongest storms.
• Rowena Crest, about 70 miles east near The Dalles, has the same kind of view in the drier air east of the Cascade crest.
• Larch Mountain, 40 miles east, has a 4,061-foot summit viewpoint with Mount St. Helens, Rainier and Adams to the north, but the road is gated for the winter from about November to late May.

The Oregon page covers the rest of the state.