Overview
- University of Warwick researchers presented a method at the Royal Astronomical Society meeting in July 2026 that finds a reproducible moment in each solar cycle when the most extreme space weather ends.
- The team says the number of sunspots at that abrupt 'switch‑off' correlates with the peak of the next cycle, enabling forecasts up to six to seven years before a cycle’s maximum.
- Using the technique the researchers produced an early, provisional forecast that Solar Cycle 26 will be moderate with a peak of about 100–120 sunspots, but they will refine that prediction when Solar Cycle 25 reaches the switch‑off in roughly two years.
- The approach builds on the 'sunclock' analysis and a proposed physical mechanism in which active regions migrating below about 15° latitude enter a co‑rotating band that weakens differential rotation and halts extreme coronal mass ejections.
- If independently validated across more cycles the method could give satellite operators, grid managers and airlines more time to plan, yet the model still needs the Cycle 25 observation and further testing before it can be treated as an operational forecast.