So we all know that there are a ton of places that claim to be the best place to see the Northern Lights and whatnot. However, even if I'm in one of those places, I don't necessarily want to have to stay up all night every day just for a chance at seeing them.
Do text or email services exist?
Or, do any hotels provide a service where someone will come and wake you up if they're visible?
If you want to get up to watch the northern lights, rather than staying out all night I would suggest staying outside of town, otherwise you will have a lot of light pollution. on the topic of light pollution Check the phase of the moon and its location. I used Stellarium for the location and just google 'moon phases' to make sure It's isn't going to be a glaring full moon.
While booking my Trip to Tromsø I found Wikipedia gave a time window for when Tromsø would be in the 'Auroral zone' in this case the window is 1800 to 0000 basically 6 hours so you don't need to stay up all night.
Other options would be to take a group tour overnight, that way others can wait up all night and wake you when the show starts. I have found plenty of these again for Tromsø, though I imagine there would be similar trips all over Scandinavia.
Websites
There are Auroa Forcasts which can give you a good idea if staying up is worth while. and how far north you need to go to get a decent view.
There is also an email subscription for solar events which have the potential to increase Aurora activity.
Live Cam's
Live camera from northern Sweden. This British site has links to camera's in Finland and Norway. Its worth noting the camera's aren't really live as you need a multi second exposure to capture the northern lights.
Solar forecasts on twitter, a KP of 4 is considered active. I can't seem to find a twitter feed for Scandinavia there are ones for Canada and Alaska though.
Another fine resource is SpaceWeather - with Aurora forecast maps for all over the world (it happens down under too), as well as recent photos of Auroras that people have spotted, images of the sun, info about the newest sunspots and predictions of the chance of a flare or an aurora.
