{"id":31835,"date":"2018-05-02T10:19:09","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T14:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=31835"},"modified":"2018-05-02T10:19:09","modified_gmt":"2018-05-02T14:19:09","slug":"sunspots-are-in-short-supply-and-its-only-getting-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/sunspots-are-in-short-supply-and-its-only-getting-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunspots are in short supply (and it’s only getting worse)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Not a sunspot to be found. (Credit: SDO\/HMI via Spaceweather.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

Unfortunately, this is not news to brighten your day. According to Spaceweather.com<\/a>, sunspots are disappearing faster than expected:<\/p>\n

Sunspots are becoming scarce. Very scarce. So far in 2018 the sun has been blank almost 60% of the time, with whole weeks going by without sunspots. Today’s sun, shown here in an image [above] from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, is typical of the featureless solar disk.<\/p>\n

The fact that sunspots are vanishing comes as no surprise. Forecasters have been saying for years that this would happen as the current solar cycle (“solar cycle 24”) comes to an end. The surprise is how fast.<\/p>\n

“Solar cycle 24 is declining more quickly than forecast,”\u00a0stated<\/a>\u00a0NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center on April 26th. This plot shows observed sunspot numbers in blue vs. the official forecast in red:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>“The smoothed, predicted sunspot number for April-May 2018 is about 15,” says NOAA. “However, the actual monthly values have been lower.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Continue reading the full story at Spaceweather.com.<\/a><\/p>\n

I will be very happy to see sunspot numbers rise again–they eventually will, of course. I’ve almost forgotten what a proper band opening feels like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unfortunately, this is not news to brighten your day. According to Spaceweather.com, sunspots are disappearing faster than expected: Sunspots are becoming scarce. Very scarce. So far in 2018 the sun has been blank almost 60% of the time, with whole weeks going by without sunspots. Today’s sun, shown here in an image [above] from NASA’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[545,3,43,810],"tags":[811,415,1127,411],"class_list":["post-31835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ham-radio","category-news","category-shortwave-radio","category-space-weather","tag-spaceweather","tag-sun-spot-cycle","tag-sun-spots","tag-sunspots"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pn3uc-8ht","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":30763,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/solar-minimum-a-relative-large-sunspot-makes-appearance\/","url_meta":{"origin":31835,"position":0},"title":"Solar Minimum: A “relatively large” sunspot makes appearance","author":"Thomas","date":"February 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"(Source: Southgate ARC) With Solar Minimum right around the corner, sunspot counts are at an almost 10-year low. So it came as a surprise yesterday when a relatively large sunspot emerged near the sun's eastern limb. AR2699\u00a0has a primary dark core larger than Earth with many smaller magnetic condensations trailing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Sunspots","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Sunspot.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":41218,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/lack-of-sunspots-breaks-a-space-age-record\/","url_meta":{"origin":31835,"position":1},"title":"Lack of Sunspots Breaks a Space Age Record","author":"Troy Riedel","date":"December 16, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Another [sun] spotless day on the sun. Spaceweather.com reports that today we surpassed the largest number of spotless days (270) of the previous 2008 Solar Minimum cycle. The current spotless streak stands at 33 days and is quite possibly on its way to surpass the previous longest streak of this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Space Weather"","block_context":{"text":"Space Weather","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/space-weather\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Sun-Spotless-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":62144,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/a-second-solar-max-peak\/","url_meta":{"origin":31835,"position":2},"title":"A Second Solar Max Peak?","author":"Robert Gulley","date":"February 22, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 SOLAR MAX -- IS A SECOND PEAK COMING? Last October, NOAA and NASA announced that Solar Max has arrived. Only half the sun got the memo. The majority of solar activity has been happening in just one of the sun's hemispheres--the south. The solar superstorm of May 10, 2024,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Sunspots","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Sunspot.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":41285,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/a-new-sunspot-emerges-breaking-40-day-spotless-streak\/","url_meta":{"origin":31835,"position":3},"title":"A new sunspot emerges, breaking 40 day spotless streak","author":"Thomas","date":"December 24, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"(Source: Spaceweather.com via Michael Bird) A SUNSPOT FROM THE NEXT SOLAR CYCLE: Breaking a string of 40 spotless days, a new sunspot is emerging in the sun's southern hemisphere. It comes from the next solar cycle. The unnumbered spot is inset in this map of solar magnetic fields from NASA's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/unnamed-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":33757,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2018\/08\/surprise-sunspot-group-g-3-geomagnetic-storm-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":31835,"position":4},"title":"Surprise sunspot group & G-3 Geomagnetic Storm (Now!)","author":"Troy Riedel","date":"August 26, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"As an avid amateur astronomer, solar observation has been quite boring during 2018.\u00a0 As a shortwave radio enthusiast, the lack of solar activity has impacted that hobby as well. Well, the catchword of the day is \u201csurprise\u201d! I was alerted yesterday evening by Spaceweather.com that a large sunspot had emerged\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"spaceweather\"","block_context":{"text":"spaceweather","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/tag\/spaceweather\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Sunspots.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Sunspots.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Sunspots.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Sunspots.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1170,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/sunspots-hibernate\/","url_meta":{"origin":31835,"position":5},"title":"Scientists predict sun may ‘hibernate’","author":"Thomas","date":"June 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"News sources are publishing information regarding new scientific research which puts our sunspot cycle into question. How does this affect the average shortwave listener? Periods of high sunspot numbers generally produce excellent DX conditions. In other words, with modest equipment, listeners can hear even weak signals around the world. Amateur\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/SunSpots1-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}