Northern lights go wild for our first tour

What a way to start the northern lights season in Rovaniemi last Sunday night, we weren’t expecting much. The KP level appeared quite low, and cloud coverage wasn’t looking too promising. But as the evening approached I noticed spikes in the Aurora forecast, it was reaching heights of KP level 3.67, which is perfect for our geographical location.

We picked up the clients at dusk when there was still a little light in the sky, as we knew that the Aurora levels would dip a little later, we wanted to make sure we got there for when it started. At our first location, we got some beautiful pictures of the lights as they started faintly in the background, at first, only through the camera we could see it, then shortly after we could start to see the faint green glow with our eyes. Then one the local mass tourism companies showed up in their bus so we quickly loaded up the van and headed for greener (darker) pastures.

While driving to our second location, I was a bit nervous that we would be in the wrong position due to the full moon, so as we turned off the main road, where, there are never any cars, we went onto the gravel tracks, swerving all the potholes and keeping a good eye open for Moose or Reindeer who may wonder into the road we finally got to our location, about 75k north of Rovaniemi.

When we arrived the wind was blowing hard over the river creating some small waves on the beach and the huge full moon was thankfully behind the trees allowing us to capture some amazing images and even film the Aurora. The Aurora was so strong in the end that we got home later than planned, but it was so worth it.

To see the video we made that night, please look here: