Some fun stats with Sunspots and how the current activity stacks up against recent history « Digital Diatribes of a Random Idiot

… I’ve run some averages - nothing fancy - and taken a look at the historical averages. Here is what I’ve found:

*September 2008 sunspot value = 1.1. After 2 months at 0.5, and a value of 0.9 in October 2007, the next previous count at least this low is the 1.1 that occurred in June 1986.

Now, things get interesting…
*2-month average = 0.8: The previous 2-month average was 0.5, but prior to that the last time we’ve had a 2-month average this low was the period ending June 1954.
*3-month average = 0.7: This is the lowest three-month average since the period ending October 1913.
*6-month average = 1.8: The lowest 6-month average since the period ending December 1913.
*12-month average = 3.2: The lowest 12-month average since the period ending March 1934.
*2-year average = 6.7: The lowest since the period ending April 1924.
*3-year average = 10.2: The lowest since the period ending July 1935.
*4-year average = 15.9: The lowest since the period ending December 1935.
*5-year average = 22.0: The lowest since the period ending July 1936.
*6-year average = 30.2: The lowest since the period ending February 1937.
*7-year average = 41.9. It is finally at this point where we see this average reached in recent prior cycles, and isn’t an extraordinarily low value.

So, no matter how you look at it, for any stretch from 2-months to 6 years, we are in territory unseen since mid 1954 at the latest, and in some cases dating back nearly a century. Fun times.