This is the fourth "official" start of Cycle 24. When will these so-called experts realize they don't have a clue about the internal processes of the Sun and cannot predict anything? Sure, I can predict too, doesn't mean I'll be any more successful than the experts, and I'll probably have just as good a chance at being correct. Two years ago Cycle 24 was supposed to be the baddest cycle yet, now it's going to be one of the milder ones. Three times last year they heralded the start of Cycle 24, only to see Cycle 23 sunspots emerge again and again. One of these days, they are bound to be right, but it'll be more by luck than by design...

And why, pray, was it felt appropriate to illustrate this story with a bob of Swarfega?

Which of course means unless you live uncomfortably close to the arctic circle, you won't get a decent light display of an evening.

By the time the sun gets off its lazy arse and starts putting out some decent sized solar flares, the shift in magnetic north will mean you'll need to live somewhere close to Siberia to get the best shows too.

Of course the same is true for the more pansy sounding Southern Lights. It's a little known fact outside of the UK that things in the saarf are less manly than those in the north, but I educate where I can. Mind you everywhere outside of Britain might as well be the saarf, because nowhere does a decent chips'n'gravy, so the whole thing is wasted anyway. Who wants to sit down and watch the Northern Lights if you don't have a decent bag of chips to go with it?

Historical data

In 1913 we had a yearly mean of 1.4 (sunspots)

In 1917 the mean was 103.9

I have my own theory on the cycle, and my prediction is for a much more active Maximum than the NOAA predicts.

The chances for a destructive CME (one that is both powerful and with a trajectory to hit the planet) is random, but with a high level of activity a serious risk.

The Carrington event occured in 1859, the mean of that year was 93.8