Sad but true, as of today, July 16, 2014, the sun is spotless. The last time that happened was on August 11, 2011. SolarHam.com even compared the spotless sun to an orange today!
You can clearly see the double peak of Cycle 24 on the graph above. Unless there is another outburst, it looks like the peak smoothed sunspot number of 75.4 was reached during November 2013, which was a first for solar observations (having the second peak larger than the first — the first being 66.9 in Februrary of 2012).
Cycle 24 remains the weakest solar cycle since Cycle 14 in 1906. By the way, the expectation for the peak of Cycle 25, a decade in the future, is even lower than Cycle 24.
Time for 80 Meter DXing!
