Thanks Lester!
Like you, I planned what I believed were a conservative 2 weeks, hoping to see at least one good display. The first few days were very disheartening ... according to aurora forecasts there were some great displays to be seen (5 and 6 on the 0-9 scale), but alas Iceland was under cloud cover. Long-term weather forecasts looked awful (and proved to be totally inaccurate). Short-term forecasts (ie. for 24 hours) by the Icelandic BOM proved to be very accurate however, and in the end flexibilty on our part (ie. rental car) and a lot of chasing clear skies were the key. Western Iceland (incl. Reykjavik) was under clouds throughout the 2 weeks, whereas the east and north were clear at times. Ended up seeing the aurora on 9 of the 15 nights, and had one truly fantastic display (entire sky active) plus 2 more pretty good ones. About 6 of the 9 would have totally satisfied my initial hopes!
Advantages of Iceland over northern Scandinavia (or Alaska) IMO are:
- not nearly as cold, funny as that sounds, but Iceland is warmed by the Gulfstream year round
- island climates are more variable, so while chances of "bad" weather are higher, it tends to clear quicker. Scandinavia is much more continental and stable, which means if you're lucky you might have 2 weeks of fantastic weather, but then again you might be socked in for 2 weeks
- more scenic (even in Winter), but that maybe subjective
- easier to get around (if you have your own car), with plenty of "cheap" off-season accomodation (on current exchange rates anyway), though I've never been to Finland, so maybe that's not so much of an issue