Going back to 1755, there have been only a few solar cycles in the previous 23 that have had a lower number of sunspots during its “maximum” phase (plot below; courtesy Doug Biesecker of NOAA/SWPC). For this reason, many solar researchers are calling this current solar maximum a “mini-max”. Solar cycle 24 began after an unusually deep solar minimum that lasted from 2007 to 2009. In fact, in 2008 and 2009, there were almost no sunspots, a very unusual situation that had not happened for almost a century.