Russ Steele
The first sun spot of Cycle 24 appeared and then quickly faded, now the second Cycle 24 sun spot has also quickly faded. The sun is now spotless. As Richard Frei noted, both of these spots were so small the with out modern instruments would have gone unnoticed in the past. As Cycle 23 continues to roll on all across the nation people are looking for spring. We saw a few snow flakes falling this morning on our deck as the Sierra gets a dusting of snow.
In the early 1800, during the Dalton Minimum the Lewis and Clark Corp of Discover recorded lower than normal temperatures as they crossed the mid-west. Here are some figure for Cedar Rapids from ICECAP:
Cedar Rapids and the surrounding Midwest has been consistently colder than normal since December. In Cedar Rapids, December averaged 3.0 F below normal, January 1.9 F below normal, February a whopping 8.3 F below normal, March 4.9 F below normal and so far in April 4.4 degrees below normal.
Keep an eye on the Sun here.
