Sun Says “Look Ma, No Cavities”. Almost No Sunspots

As you can see from the latest sunspot image above there are almost no Earth facing sun spot at this time. The only remaining sunspot is AR2113 and it is about to rotate out of the field of view. It also appears that there are no new spots about to come into view. In the next few hours we could see a totally clear sun, which is rather unusual. The last time we saw something like this was the solar minimum in 2008-2009.  Solar activity forecast from NOAA reports activity is expected to be very low with a slight chance for a C-class flare on July 17-19.  This also means the Aurora activity will be down.

Were not at solar minimum now so don’t expect this to last. Could this be the calm before the storm? Only time will tell. In any case be sure to keep an eye on the Sun Spot animation page to hopefully see a totally clear Sun in the very near future.