An early prediction of the maximum amplitude of the solar cycle 25

A solar activity precursor technique of spotless event has been currently used to predict the strengths and the times of rise of the 11-year coming cycles. This simple statistical method has been previously applied to predict the maximum amplitudes and the times of rises of cycles 22 and 23. The results obtained are successful for both cycles. A developed version of the suggested method was previously used to make an early forecast of the characteristic parameters of the cycle 24. In this work the preliminarily predicted parameters of the cycle 24 are checked using observed values of the spotless events. In addition, the developed method is also applied to forecast the maximum amplitude and time of rise of the 25th solar cycle. The maximum Wolf number and time of rise of the latter cycle are found to be 118.2 and 4.0 years respectively. (C) 2012 Cairo University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.