[TowerTalk] Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel Report

[Jerry Gardner]

>On the website http://www.sec.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/SC24/PressRelease.html
>they said the following: "The first year after solar minimum, marking the
>end of Cycle 23, will provide the information scientists need to arrive at
a
>consensus".
>
>
>In science you cannot have a consensus. Something either is or isn't. The
>statement points to how politics has entered the world of Science whether
it
>be forecasting a solar cycle or global warming.
>
>My forecast for cycle 24 is for it to begin in June 2007 and peak at a
>smoothed SSN of 105 in 2012. Recently there have been a number of
>predictions calling for solar cycle 24 to be very large if not the largest
>since solar cycle 19. Not only do I think that those hyped forecasts are
>incorrect and have stated so on a number of propagation email reflectors,
my
>forecast for cycle 24 is for it to be weaker than solar cycle 23. As a ham
>radio operator I hope I'm wrong but we won't know either way for a number
of
>years.
>
>73,
>Thomas F. Giella, KN4LF
>Lakeland, FL, USA
>kn4lf at earthlink.net


I came across this old post from April 2007 in the archives and thought it
might be interesting to compare Thomas' predictions from 9 years ago to
what actually happened.

Thomas predicted cycle 24 would start in June 2007, the actual start was in
January 2008 -- not bad-- off by only 6 months.

He predicted a peak in 2012 -- the dual peaks occurred in 2011 and 2014.

He predicted the peak to reach a smoothed SSN of 105 -- the actual peaks
were 99 for the first peak and 101 for the second. Not bad at all. In fact,
he nearly nailed it.

73,
Jerry