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.

Jonathan Makela from the University of Illinois is working to improve the prediction of weather conditions in the ionosphere. They are primarily looking at how solar flares effect the ionosphere. Changes in the ionosphere effect satellite communications and earth based electrical grids. Observations on the ionsphere are being done from Cornell and Virginia Tech Universities by monitoring the airglow of the earth's atmosphere for changes.

NOAA forecasters predicted that the latest solar flares would send CME's (coronal mass ejections) towards earth within the next day. These CME's are likely to cause damage to non-hardened electrical systems earth bound and in space.