Sunspots Drastically Below Forecast

The latest observed number of sunspots through October shows that the forecasted number of sunspots is much too high for what we have observed in the past few months.

This image is composed of raw observation data of sunspots, marked by the dots on the chart. The blue line on the left half of the image is the average number of sunspots through the observed period- basically the mean of the raw data. The red line is the forecasted sunspots. As you can see, it is pretty high compared to the observed sunspots.

What does this mean? Why would the sun affect me?

Temperatures are greatly influenced by sunspots- "greatly", meaning about a degree of wiggle room. A degree above or below normal across the nation is pretty big, considering it's the entire world's temperature average. All that aside, a lack of sunspots leads to a general drop in temperatures. Nothing significant by any means, but big warm-ups may now be a little cooler than they would be in average sun spots.

This is definitely something to watch in coming weeks that could affect temperatures, even through the winter.

Andrew