Just had a look at a link to sunspot activity & there is just one currently,No. 1084,big spot but no activity.Sure doesn't bode well for the coming winter,what odds would you get on it being mild,pretty damn long I should think.


edit, link is http://www.spaceweather.com/





metalhammer.

that sunspot is weird (1084) have you seen the magnetogram picture of it on solarcycle 24 site.it looks like a hole in the sun.

The sunspots have been rising in general this year, still very low mind, but a far cry from last winter when we had no sun spots for 74 days in a row or something similar.

Recently there hasn't been many days where sunspots haven't features, albeit not many of them.

Besides even with sunspots at a minimum we could still get a seriously mild winter, with the high pressure over the continent pumping up warm southerlies from Africa (1988 for example), we werent far from that scenario last winter but alas thin lines when it comes to winter high pressure - we got the short straw.

Feb 1988..





The warmest winter since records began, very few places recorded below 0C the whole winter. Very similar situation to what we have now. 2 years later under the same situation we got 1990 which was a fairly snowy winter, so a suggestion that perhaps sunspot minimum and negative NAO dont necessarily mean a cold winter but more based on the luck of the synoptics and how much warmth is scattered around the NH, and where..

SOHO back online now,take a look at this does'nt it look like a hole in the sun

Fun picture

The little blueish ball is earth at the same size as the flare

I watched Knowing with Nicholas Cage last week. An active sun may well be good for a warm Earth, but we do not want it too active, lol!

Now we're talking!

Hopefully the increased activity we're starting to see equals milder winters ahead. From a purely statistical perspective it's fairly safe to assume we've experienced the worst with the two last winters and that we should be heading back to milder winters again... This last winter in particular broke so many records it's hard to imagine another one in my lifetime...

Never safe to do anything DK, for this winter it will depends on surface pattern rather than solar influence which operates on a lag.

I would like to think that last year was extreme, and 3 harsh winter months in a row are relatively unknown however with Europe being very hot this year, plus similar patterns suggest we could see a winter similar to 2008/2009, for example a very cold December/January and a milder Feb/March.

I think if it does happens Scotland, NI, and NW England and N Wales may get away with a slightly higher than average temperatures over winter, whilst the south may witness another below average winter.

We shall see.

I hope it's mild everywhere.

I could learn to live with this more continental type climate....Ok a lot of stuff we grow outside now would not be possible, but that is more than made up by the very rapid growth you can achieve in a hot summer. Things like musa basjoo are cut to the ground every winter, but then grow 10 to 12 feet in the growing season..

We've entered a subdued phase of solar activity which should persist until around 2060 (Gleisenburg Minimum).

I'm told that current solar maxima due in 2013 will be much lower than normal and then there will be almost no solar activity present until around 2050

This is also what caused the Little Ice Age so let's see if global warming will compensate

Ever seen a grown man cry?

Well, that is what would happen if this rubbish July weather continues for much longer! Follow that up with another winter like the last one and I will be slitting my wrists

Forecasting minimums is like forecasting weather, absolutely no chance of getting it right.

For all we know the 2012 maximum may be the strongest ever, there's no reason it wouldn't be.

I think alot of scientists have jumped the gun with this minimum, in the same way climate change seem to be just alot of scientists, lawmakers (moneymakers) jumping the gun.

If it's not extreme never ending warming, it's ice ages and the like.

Its never anywhere inbetween is it?

In a worst case scenario with regards to sun spot acitivity and the Gleisenburg minimum, does that automatically dictate colder winters for northern Europe or could it be just about anybody?

It's kinda ironic that the last year's global temperature has been one of the warmet on record, yet northern Europe drew the shortest straw and had one of the worst winters in the last century. And now Argentina and south America is experiencing some of what we had to endure... Is it ever going to end?

I had high expectations for this summer after what can be described as a cold continental winter climate, and yet we had to return to our usual wet and depressing marine climate just in time for summer. I could have forgiven the winter we just had if the summer had amounted to anything, but so far I've been extremely underwhelmed by the lack of heat and sunshine. Max this year 26 degrees for just one day, with an average high of just 20 degrees in july...

Your max is around the same as here, but your average for July is higher.

July has been pants

Well it barely reached 20, 19.9 to be exact... Had a look at our nabours to the east, southern parts of Sweden and Denmark, and many places have had mean temperatures just as high as my average highs.

I'm not sure if you heared of the record temperatures they're having in Russia and northeastern Europe at the moment, with temperatures well above 30-35 degrees? When will we get a taste of that? They didn't have any problem sharing their cold with us last winter