Sorry - 21 days below should read 27-28 days!!


"Jim Smith" wrote in message
...
OK have thought about this further...

"Martin Rowley" wrote in message
...
Here is a summary of Piers Corbyn's forecast (issued under the
'WeatherAction' name). This was publicised via a press release and
presentation on the 16th October, 2007. The full forecast is at the
bottom of this posting, minus all the stuff relating to Mr Corbyn's
views on the climate change debate, Nobel awards etc.


Part of Piers' press release (rest snipped):

"These storm events are caused by solar particle and magnetic effects

which we can predict. They are nothing to do with Carbon Dioxide or
so-

called man-made Global Warming" In the public interest, because of

their importance Weather Action are -- unusually - making these

forecasts public well in advance.

How can you predict the solar particle and magnetic effects?? True,
recurrent coronal holes can be forecast to return as the sun spins on it's
axis once every 21 days... but major solar flares (which are most unlikely
to occur at a time of zero sunspots i.e. most days since early September
this year) are not that predictable, especially some weeks ahead. Sunspot
groups form at random at all stages of the solar cycle and these cannot be
predicted.
One can make a prediction of the general shape of solar activity over a
period of several years but even now, no-one really knows how big or small
the next solar peak in the early 2010's will be.

Solar activity has been very low in recent months (source:
http://dxlc.com/solar/ : solar flux levels at or below 70 is rock bottom,
sunspot number zero on most days), and magnetic activity has been slightly
elevated at times due to coronal holes, but nothing in any way major)

It will be interesting to see what he comes out with when we have plenty
of sunspots and solar flares once again :-)

Jim, Bournemouth.