Northern Europe: Aurora hunting in Lapland

Photo from guide #1

As I mentioned previously, the main reason for this trip is aurora borealis. To increase the probabilty of seeing one, we decided to sign up for a tour and hopefully on the earlier part of our trip. December isn't the best month for aurora sighting despite it being right smack in the winter due to high probability of precipitation. However, there's the mandatory company closing over Christmas - New Year period that days away from work are deducted from annual leave allocation - which resulted as to why I travel during this time nowadays. 

Sis found a small aurora hunting tour departs from Rovaniemi where departure time or location depends on forecast at the particular day. No tour is available on bad weather days or when aurora activity is weak, which was why we didn't get on the tour on the day we arrived in Rovaniemi. Our guide, Alex contacted sis to let us know that the tour would be departing at 6pm on the new year's day. 

The tour definitely helped us in self-hunting aurora later on. We learnt that the lights mostly start off as a horizontal streak, and could be grey-ish white looking like clouds. If it wasn't obvious to the naked eye, then try to take a picture as the colour is more apparent in photos. Look towards the northern sky - we find that once we located the Big Dipper (constellation which looks like a spoon), we are usually looking at the right direction. 

While we have downloaded some apps to receive notifications when the aurora activity level increases but it doesn't really correlate with actual situation. Many times the alerts went off but none to be seen when we piled on the layers and went out. I find the aurora live cam works better though. 

Despite departing from Rovaniemi, the clearer sky that evening/night was actually towards Sweden, so Alex drove us to Sweden. On driving passed a wide open area, Alex said he spotted the lights so we got off the car and waited for a short while and the aurora put up an amazing dance. It lasted for awhile before fading away. 

Photo from guide #2

Photo from guide #3

We didn't bring tripod, not because being ambitious but the logistic of having to lugging it around. 

After leaving the first stop location, midway driving Alex spotted aurora again so we stopped by the road side and started watching the lights dance. This round was as strong as the initial round too. It was indeed a very happy new year's day.

Photo from guide #4

Photo from guide #5

We saw aurora again at 2 different nights when we were in Abisko. The aurora was strong even when we were just standing right outside the hostel. We went to a lake nearby the following night to wait for aurora but it wasn't as clear. They appeared mostly as streaks of white-greyish clouds. 

For the lack of words to describe this, it was truly an amazing sight. I am most thankful that our aurora hunting was successful, and that aurora put up with such a spectacular dance. 

Side note: All sightings coincidentally were in Swedish Lapland.