Recent results of Newell et al. [1998a> suggest that the polar cap integrated auroral occurrence frequency is independent of the solar cycle phase. This paper utilizes auroral all-sky camera observations from Northern Finland during 1974--1996 to show that although the total number of auroral observations shows only a weak solar cycle dependence, the number of quiet auroral arcs is anticorrelated with the sunspot number, indicating that active auroral forms are less common during sunspot minima. A local index for geomagnetic substorm occurrence frequency and intensity is developed. It is shown that in long-term averages this index is highly correlated with the planetary aa index, and that both show strong correlation with the sunspot number. We further demonstrate a clear correlation between the active auroral forms and the local geomagnetic disturbances. ¿ 1998 American Geophysical Union