Sunspot Cycle Minimum now expected for May 2007
I just read an interesting note in the recent ARRL Propagation Forecast which states that the new minimum should now be in May 2007 instead of March/April 2007.
What does that mean? More time to wait … although 2 months in a 11 year cycle is not much it still puts strain on our patience 
A copy of this bulletin can be found here.
There is a new prediction for the sunspot cycle minimum. Until recently, the minimum was predicted to have a smoothed sunspot number of 6 centered on March and April 2007. The new forecast moves the minimum out a little further and not as low, with a smoothed sunspot number of 7 for May 2007. You can see the difference in the table on page 11 of the SEC Preliminary Report and Forecast for this week, compared with the issue from four weeks ago. The old forecast is at, http://www.sec.noaa.gov/weekly/pdf/prf1627.pdf on page 11, and the new one at, http://www.sec.noaa.gov/weekly/pdf/prf1631.pdf , also on page 11. This later and higher minimum makes sense, because we haven’t seen weeks in a row of 0 sunspot days.
