No spots. Nice and cool in Florida. Any updates?
Yes. Sort of.
While Solar Flux values have been minimal, October at least had 5 sunspot groups (only 22 for the year before October) and 4 were of solar cycle 24 polarity.
The good news is that the minimum may “end” over the next few months.
The bad news is that the “maximum” may end up being as strong as the fifth cup of hot tea made with the same tea bag.
SC23 has lasted longer than any solar cycle since the Dalton Minimum (as you know there’s a correlation between cycle length and warming/cooling) and there is no reason to believe that SC24 will be a shorter and warmer cycle either.
As for today’s values:
Flux Density Values in sfu for 22:00 on 2008:11:19
Julian Day Number : 2454790.406
Carrington Rotation Number : 2076.986
Observed Flux Density : 0068.3
Flux Density Adjusted for 1 A.U. : 0066.7
URSI Series D Flux, Adj. x 0.9 : 0060.0
... they don’t inspire confidence.