Early in the month I enjoy looking at the forecast for the solar cycle on my favourite site for such data. At the moment the peak for sunspots in cycle 25 looks like August 2024, but it depends on the smoothing period.
What should be the case, is solar conditions should be good for some time yet. I wanted to link to the image on the solan website but failed. Clearly the copyright is with solan.
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| https://www.solen.info/solar/ |
The jury is still out on the smoothed peak of solar cycle 25. At one time it was last year, but now it is thought possible it could be October 2024 according to Solan.
What is certain is solar conditions are good and likely to remain so for some years to come.
There is no doubt that we have seen some very high solar activity of late.
Both solar flux and sunspot numbers have been high. As the peak of the solar cycle is an average, it will be many months after the event that we will know when the peak actually occurred. The good news is solar conditions will be good for several years yet.
My favourite site for solar data pushed into this year the peak of solar cycle 25. It was November 2023 for some time. I am wondering if this has to be adjusted yet again, based on the high solar activity this month? They take an average so the peak is always some months ahead of the month with the highest numbers.
According to my favourite site for solar data, the maximum for solar cycle 25 was probably June 2024 i.e. quite recently.
My usual site for solar data usually has a major update at the start of the month. Last time they were predicting the smoothed peak of solar cycle 25 was November 2023. It will be interesting to see this month's prediction. Sometimes we have a second peak.
See https://www.solen.info/solar/ .
Usually, near the start of the month my favourite site for solar data has a major update. This last few weeks have seen days with high solar flux and sunspot numbers, so it will be interesting to see if forecasts have changed much.
At the moment, we are meant to be on the downward slope of cycle 25, although in the last few days, the solar flux and sunspot number have been very high. Even if sunspot numbers are declining, solar conditions will be good for several years.
Sometimes we see a second peak that can be higher than the first, but at the moment it looks like we are on the downward slopes of solar cycle 25. My favourite site for solar data has just been updated.
Conditions should still be good for several years yet.
My best site for solar data has been updated as it always is at the start of a month. It shows us just over the solar cycle peak. Unless we see a second peak (possible) we could be on a long decline to solar minimum. We can expect good conditions on the higher HF bands for some years yet.
I remember working South America on 10m QRP SSB (10W pep and a dipole) right at the solar minimum and zero sunspots. With FT8 this should be even easier.
Stick with the higher HF bands!
Early every month, my favourite site for solar data is updated. It is worth checking to see how things are progressing.
It looks like the peak of solar cycle 25 may have been reached. November 2023 was the month shown as the predicted peak of this cycle. This has not changed for months on my favourite site for solar data.
We can expect conditions to be for several more years.
Although I am far from an expert on this sort of thing, I suspect we have now passed the solar maximum in this cycle. Sunspot numbers and solar flux have been lower than past months. Usually, the solar maximum is averaged over several months, so the actual peak cannot be known until we are well over the peak.
Certainly MUFs have been high and my 2.5W 8m FT8 makes it to the USA, Canada or the Caribbean most days. Some amazing DX has been worked on 6m too.
Solar conditions are currently very good on average. As I have mentioned before, solar conditions could be good for several years to come. With FT8 we could well find the higher HF bands are good for some while yet.
One of the best places for solar data is https://www.solen.info/solar/. There are others too, but this is the site I usually go to. It is updated pretty often too.
My favourite site for solar data was updated today. It still shows the peak of solar cycle 25 as November 2023. This is early and conditions of late were on the slide. Unless we get a higher peak we could already be on the downward slopes. As mentioned before, solar conditions could be good for several years still.
In the last month, apart from today, solar activity has been poorer than the month before. As the last solar minimum was only in 2020, I cannot believe we have already gone past the peak of solar cycle 25. In the last cycle there was a bigger peak after the first.
What is certain is that solar activity can remain good for several years after the peak. Even if this was a very early peak and not a blip, we can expect solar activity to remain good for several years yet. If the peak really is a way off, this means we can expect solar activity to be pretty good until at least 2026.
It is my belief that it is often low activity rather than conditions that make the higher HF bands seem dead. With modes like FT8, we may well find 10m, for example, is "open" far more often than we once thought.
My favourite site for solar data has just been updated. It still show the peak of solar cycle 25 as November 2023 with a peak of 144.2 (this is up slightly). This seems early, but it has been late this year now for a very long time. If so, conditions could still be good for several years to come. It is definitely worth watching 10m FT8. I suspect 10m will remain open far more than we thought.
According to the latest update to my favourite site for solar data, the next sunspot maximum is still shown as December 2023 with a smoothed number of 142.5. This makes it a very short time since the minimum. The information was updated today.
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