Over four days last week, we saw a blank Sun, starting with March 4. On March 5,
the sunspot number was 11 (indicating a single sunspot), then on March 6-8 the
Sun was blank again. Thus, we saw an average daily sunspot number of just 14.1,
a 20-point drop from the previous seven days.
Yesterday (Thursday) still
no sunspots (our reporting week for calculating averages runs Thursday through
Wednesday, so the zero-sunspot number for Thursday will be included in the
average for the March 17 bulletin).
Geomagnetic activity forecast for the
period March 10-April 5, 2017 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH, of the Czech Propagation
Interest Group.
"Geomagnetic field will be:
Quiet on March 14-15,
21, 26
Mostly quiet on March 1 0-13, 20
Quiet to unsettled March 16, 22,
25, April 4
Quiet to active on March 18-19, 24, 27-29, 31, April 1-3,
5
Active to disturbed on March 17, 23, 30
Amplifications of the solar
wind from coronal holes are expected on March (20-22,) 23-27, (April 3-8)
-
Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement and/or lower
reliability of prediction."