The new unnumbered active region, AR2736?, mentioned in my prior post has been rapidly growing in only a few hours as it approaches the western limb of the sun ahead of the established AR2735, which now appears to be decaying.
Note that the new active region has a magnetic polarity that is very strange. See this HMI Magnetogram colored image of the sun: https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/la ... _HMIBC.jpg
With this new active region, solar activity has ramped up. Take a gander at https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/goes-x-ray-flux.
The EISN plot from Belgium, which can be found at http://www.sidc.be/silso/eisnplot, shows a sharp increase in Estimated International Sunspot Numbers (EISN), which now reads 37 with two astronomical stations reporting (not statistically significant). The average number of sunspots per day stands at approximately 6.8 for the 19th of March. After more astronomers report in later during the day of March 20, we should get a better picture.
Could it be that we have already or will soon approach the lowest point in this solar minimum? Per Belgium, the lowest month of this solar minimum would be "the month in which the (Meeus smoothed) solar cycle minimum took place." If this lowest month of this solar minimum has already taken place in August 2018, December 2018, or February 2019, then this would be a short solar minimum, and next winter could be slightly warmer. However, I believe that we cannot yet predict, and that at least six more months or even more will need to be observed before a prediction can be made. Time will tell. The sun is not neatly predictable, and that drives some scientists crazy, so we must be patient.
Regarding cooling trends, nature can surprise us as there have been quite a few recent volcanic eruptions, which do cool the earth as they spew their volcanic ash and gases high into the atmosphere, blanketing the earth with dusty clouds and preventing the warming rays of the sun from reaching us for months. Also remember that a polar shift is in progress, but a rapid pole shift could occur which could also plunge the earth into an ice age. And then there is the possibility of an asteroid hit, which could also bring on an ice age.