The solar cycle is at or near a minimum, part of a downward trend cycle that has been coming on for many years now. Given the hot late summer and recent mild winters it’s a good thing I guess the sun has not been at a maximum of sunspots.

But like many things in weather there is always a lag of impacts and many factors decide what the weather and climate will be not just one single thing. Most of us studied “The Earth-Ocean-Atmosphere System” as early as middle school and no later than High School hopefully. It is indeed a SYSTEM. One with many mysteries.

Like most things in weather there is not a 1:1 relationship, the atmosphere is nonlinear. That’s why predictions are so hard.

As seen in the image above the sun just had a single very weak spot. Spaceweather reports that so far in 2019 72% of the days have been free of sunspots pushing 200 days:

The August-September data charts from Commodity Wx Group and NOAA indicate the numbers are trending toward one of the prior deepest minimums of our lifetimes 2008.

Model predictions of the future are at variance with some pointing to a continued down trend in sunspots for at least a few more years if not the entire next cycle, others show an uptick although with weakness continuing in the next cycle 25 with a peak around 2024/25.

I was curious about how other low solar summers in the 2000s have tracked temperature-wise:

And the recent low solar winters have averaged like this:

The whole year all seasons average of those recent low solar years:

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