The Northern Lights are elusive and mysterious, and a sighting rate can be nearly as elusive. The same number can be counted in completely different ways, so a big percentage on its own doesn't tell you much without the method behind it.
Here is the good news first. Contrary to what most people think, there is a good chance of seeing the Aurora on most nights, regardless of Kp-index, aurora and weather forecasts, or moonlight. We have been chasing this phenomenon for over a decade, and we substantiate this claim by recording the outcome of every chase and publishing it transparently, so you can see it for yourself.
Here is how it works, start to finish:
Our sightings and results are public
We record the outcome of every chase and publish it as the season runs, in two places:
Every night, on our stories. Every night's result is posted the next day, with pictures and sometimes videos taken on those nights, with the running rate for the season so far along with it.
Every month, as a calendar. At the end of each month we publish the full month as a calendar, every night marked a successful or unsuccessful chase with a picture from that exact night included. These stay on our profile grid for easy reference.
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Because every result stays published, you can check the figure for yourself. Open our Instagram profile, scroll back through this season's calendars, add up the nights, and you will reach the same rate we quote. That is what transparency means to us.
Reliable outcomes, not lucky ones
Our success is defined by our ability to consistently find the Aurora. Before a night is counted a success, two things must be true.
First, there was a genuine display, visible to the eye. We judge this with our guides' eyes and the camera together, because both matter. A long exposure gathers light the eye cannot, so a photograph can come out vivid green on a night the eye barely registered, which is why a picture with some green on its own is not a sighting.
However, the camera still earns its place: it records how strong a night was and confirms what our guides saw. Visible Auroras may be bright and active, or a faint band or glow that rises and fades, and either one can count. The judgement is whether the display was genuinely there to be seen, made by guides who are under these skies hundreds of nights a season.
Second, the Northern Lights were experienced across our teams out that night, not by one group alone. On most nights several of our vehicles are out across the region, in constant contact and sharing what each one sees, so we can move everyone towards the clearest skies and best chances.
A night is considered unsuccessful if one team stumbles upon a good display by sheer luck while others miss out. The rate is meant to reflect what we achieve with our capabilities, not what a single vehicle finds by chance. Our commitment is to reliable outcomes, not lucky ones.
Our strict standard
This is visible on our calendars themselves.
On some of the nights marked here, the Aurora did appear, as the photographs confirm, yet each is marked unsuccessful. On some, the light was too faint to meaningfully observe with our naked eyes. On others, not all of our teams saw the Northern Lights. We could have counted them, but we would rather our figure reflects what we reliably deliver than what the sky offered a single team
The worse it looks, the more a chase makes sense
Every chase we run from September through March enters our sighting rate, including the nights that looked unpromising, because we run on those nights too. Forecasts are a poor indicator of our chances to see the Northern Lights. The sky shifts hour by hour, clear patches open where nothing was predicted, and our calendars are full of unpromising nights that produced great results.
That is what chasing is for: we move to find the clear sky a forecast cannot see, rather than wait for a perfect one that may never arrive. The only certain way to miss the Aurora is to stay in.
You travel a long way for this, and you may never return to Tromsø again. We would rather spend the night looking than write it off on your behalf. It is also why a rate that looks high only because the difficult nights were cancelled is not a rate worth quoting. Protecting a statistic has never been the point. Giving you every chance we can is.
One night leaves too much to chance
Nothing about the Northern Lights can be guaranteed, and we would not pretend otherwise. The finest display of a season can arrive on a night the forecast looked terrible, and a perfectly clear sky can produce nothing at all. For that reason we encourage joining at least two or three chases where you can. Several nights, with a team that goes out whenever there is a genuine opportunity, give you the best chance we can offer!