Lake Stevens, WA's night sky, measured from orbit

Lake Stevens reads as suburban edge on this dataset's scale. A noticeable glow near the horizon. Brighter stars and constellations are easy to pick out; the Milky Way is washed out. Only 18% of the 3,206 cities measured here read darker than Lake Stevens.

Note the source: a satellite reading of upward light, not a visual Bortle scale reading. The two measure related but different things.

The nearest darker sky to Lake Stevens

Lake Forest Park, WA, about 19 miles away as the crow flies, measures in the rural band, one step darker than Lake Stevens. Actual driving distance will run longer than that straight-line figure.

Lake Forest Park, WA is itself still a measured city, not a designated dark-sky park, this only compares against the 3,206 places this dataset covers.

How Lake Stevens compares nationally

Lake Stevens, WA has a population of about 41,350, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Lake Stevens places 575 of 3,206 cities in this dataset's darkest-to-brightest order.