The Space Environment Center in Colorado is evenly split on the intensity of the next peak in solar storms. Solar storms are caused by solar flares spewing highly charged energy into the cosmos, an event called coronal mass ejection or sunspots. The 12 member panel believes that the next season will peak sometime between Oct, 2011 and August 2012 with moderately heavy to moderately light intensity. They expect to achieve a consensus over the next 6-12 months.

The average peak season for sun spot activity contains between 75 to 155 solars flares.

Six members of the panel believe that we will see a moderately light season of sunspot activity with about 90 sunspots peaking in August 2012.

The other six believe that we will see a moderately heavy season with about 140 sunspots peaking in October 2011.

The article does not mention if the newly launched THEMIS probes have contributed to the available information regarding solar storms. I wonder if the folks at the Space Environment Center are waiting 6-12 months for data from those satellites?

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