Issued : 6th February 2009, 1930 UTC

Past 4 months:
Solar activity was very low. But the last quarter of 2008 marked the end of the solar minimum, which probably occurred in September 2008. Several new SC24 (Solar Cycle 24) active regions appeared, and some developed in active regions, capable of producing a C-class flare. The development of new SC24 regions went on in November, but the ascending line was not continued in December and January. There were even two little active regions for Cycle 23 that popped up in January, producing a tiny sunspot. Nevertheless the Solar Flux has been in an upwards line since July 2008, which gives a little hope for the next months.

Because of the very low solar activity, the Earth's geomagnetic field was very quiet during the past four months, allowing relatively stable propagation.

F2 propagation was very poor in both northern and southern hemisphere. The Es season in the southern hemisphere was very strong.

Next 3 months:
Solar activity is expected to remain very low. In last <LT-PROPCAST> we suggested that if the sun would remain mostly spotless in the 4th quarter of 2008, it would be an indication for a low new solar maximum. Fortunately the sun did not remain spotless, but the lack of sunspot activity in the past two months confirms the unpredictability of a solar cycle. Nevertheless we do think that the sun will pick up activity in the next three months, which we have based on the upwards trend of the solar flux, and the more frequent appearance of so called proto regions. These proto regions are areas activity which are just not active enough to become active regions and produce sunspots.

However predicting solar activity is still difficult, we expect that in three months the solar flux will have picked up averaging somewhere around 75 or higher.

F2 propagation will remain very poor, with only occasional openings across lower and middle latitudes. A quiet geomagnetic filed will contribute in an occasional path ending somewhere at the edges of the higher latitudes.

Es propagation season is expected to take off  late April in the northern hemisphere, with propagation more or less similar to last Es season on the northern hemisphere. Es propagation will pick up during June in the southern hemisphere with seasonal winter shortskip up to 2000km.