Chances of seeing the Northern Lights in mid-August

If you want to see the northern lights, head to Iceland. It’s on the auroral oval, and it frequently sees aurora displays. With the sun close to its ‘solar maximum’ and the eclipse bringing darkness in the day, a lot of people are asking two questions: ‘Will we see the northern lights in mid-August in Iceland?’ and the even more ambitious ‘Will we see the northern lights during the eclipse?’

Here’s everything you need to know about the northern lights, Iceland and the eclipse. 

Will there be northern lights in mid-August in Iceland?

If you stay up late enough and there’s clear weather, there’s a good chance you’ll see the northern lights while you’re in Iceland to see the eclipse. “The sun sets really late at that time of year, and it doesn’t get completely dark, so the night sky will always be a blue bluish,” says Sævar Helgi Bragason, an award-winning astronomy communicator at Eclipse 2026. There is no astronomical darkness, only nautical twilight. “But in August, it’s dark enough to see the auroras in the darkest part of the night.” On August 12, 2026, the sun will set at 21:57, with the darkest part of the night from around 23:00 to 03:00; these four hours will give you the best chance to see any bright aurora. 

Daylight and darkness may wax and wane, but the northern lights are not seasonal. “So as long as it’s dark enough, you can see the northern lights, even during the summer in Iceland,” says Tom Kerss, Chief Aurora Chaser at Hurtigruten, who will be on the MS Spitsbergen in Greenland for the eclipse and visiting Iceland a few days later. “You don’t need to worry about them disappearing in any functional way — they are just an expression of the constant connection between the sun and the Earth, and they never go away.”

If you want to see the northern lights from Iceland during a visit to see the eclipse, stay as long as you can after the eclipse because the nights will get darker throughout August. For example, two weeks after the eclipse, sunset will occur an hour earlier. 

Will we see the northern lights during the eclipse?

It’s possible, but the sky doesn’t get very dark during a total solar eclipse. Totality is similar to dusk or dawn, comparable to civil twilight, with the sky appearing silvery or purply blue. It’s also about timing; there would need to have been significant solar activity — such as a solar flare and the ending coronal mass ejections — a few days before, around August 8, 9 or 10, 2026, to cause a geomagnetic storm. “If we have a solar storm happening while the eclipse is happening, then there’s a slight chance of seeing auroras during totality,” says Bragason. “It’s a very weak possibility, but it's late in the afternoon, so we might be able to see auroras if they’re active — let’s hope for the best!” 

There’s a better chance of seeing the journey of solar particles from the sun to the Earth. On August 12, observers will see the sun’s corona with their naked eyes if it's clear totality. This outer, hotter part of the sun’s atmosphere produces the solar wind, the flow of charged particles that a few days later interact with Earth’s magnetic field to produce aurora. “You will see the solar wind escaping from the sun during the eclipse,” says Bragason. “And if you stay in Iceland, you might see its effect on Earth in a few days.” Plan a trip to stay in Iceland until at least August 15 to have a chance to experience that.