'Always look up': The southern lights could make a dazzling return

University of Southern Queensland PhD candidate and astronomer Donna Burton said the southern states had a roughly 50 per cent chance of catching the dazzling light show.

Aurora australis, commonly known as the southern lights, lit up Australian skies as far north as Mackay, Queensland up to the Katherine region of the Northern Territory earlier this month.

The colourful hues were caused by large geomagnetic storms on May 11.

Ms Burton said a flare from a sunspot, named AR13664, contributed to the early May light show and would need to be facing Earth again for the same effect.

She said sunspots could cause auroras by releasing solar flares and a coronal mass ejection, which was a large amount of solar plasma and magnetic fields from the Sun.

Ms Burton said while the sun was unpredictable, there was a possibility of seeing the lights in the next seven to 10 days in southern parts of Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia.

"The sun is still doing things, and like everything else it is unpredictable and likes to keep us on our toes," she said.

"To get the auroras like we had, right up north, is probably like gambling."

For an aurora australis to occur, solar activity, clear weather and dark skies needed to coincide, Ms Burton said.

"You need clear weather, clear southern areas and it needs to be dark. Find a spot where you are not looking at lights from any big city" she said.

She said sometimes a camera or a phone camera could pick up the lights better than the human eye.

"Always look up, you never know what you are going to see," she said.

To keep updated with a potential light show over the next week, Ms Burton recommended the Bureau of Meteorology's Australia Space Weather Forecasting Centre.

The BoM Aurora Alerts showed no notices or alerts as of May 30.