Northern lights could be seen from Patricia Beach, on Lake Winnipeg, Tuesday night. Northern lights could be seen from Patricia Beach, on Lake Winnipeg, Tuesday night. (Shannon Bileski/CBC)

Southern Canadians are unlikely to see the aurora borealis again this week, after a second cloud of solar particles barely grazed the Earth.

"Call it a glancing blow — it wasn't that intense," said Lorne McKee, a space weather forecaster for Natural Resources Canada, Thursday.

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Geomagnetic storms, caused by the interaction of plasma particles from the sun with the Earth's magnetic field, may lead to brilliant displays of the northern lights much farther south than usual. Visibility depends partly on how clear the sky is.

On Sunday, the sun launched two coronal mass ejections — bubbles of plasma — toward the Earth. The second arrived Wednesday afternoon, but didn't hit the Earth straight on, McKee said. As a result, space weather activity is expected to be quiet to unsettled for the next two days.

Source of the aurora

The solar wind launched by the sun contains clouds of plasma, full of charged particles that include electrons and positive ions. When they reach the Earth, they interact with the Earth's magnetic field, exciting oxygen and nitrogen in the Earth's upper atmosphere.

The aurora is usually best seen in the Arctic and Antarctic because that is the location of the poles of the Earth's magnetic field, which tend to attract the charged particles.

The first cloud of solar plasma arrived Tuesday, kicking off a geomagnetic storm shortly after 12:30 p.m. ET Tuesday that led to sightings of the northern lights in southern B.C., Manitoba and Ontario.

The dancing red and green curtains of light were even spotted in some parts of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center reported. Spectacular displays were also reported in some parts of northern Europe.

However, Tuesday's storm was considered a minor one, hitting G2 on a scale where G1 is the lowest level and G5 is extreme, according to the space weather centre.

In addition, Space Weather Canada reported that it reached its peak well before nightfall in Eastern Canada.

Normally, the aurora borealis can only be seen north of Edmonton in the west and north of James Bay in the east, McKee said. During major storms, there have been sightings as far south as the southern U.S., he said, but it's been years since we've seen one of that magnitude.

The northern lights were visible at Oak Heights, Ont., near Brighton, just after midnight on Aug. 4. The northern lights were visible at Oak Heights, Ont., near Brighton, just after midnight on Aug. 4. (Submitted by Andreas Gada)