2nd northern lights show unlikely in south

Southern Canadians are unlikely to see the aurora borealis again this week, after a secondcloud 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.

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 twocoronal mass ejections bubbles of plasma toward the Earth.The second arrivedWednesday 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.

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 andOntario.

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

However,Tuesday's stormwas 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 itreached 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.