Another update from Belgium's EISN plot: 23 astronomers have filed reports of which 9 have been declared to be outliers, so only 14 of those reports have been accepted. The estimated international sunspot number remains at zero. cf. http://www.sidc.be/silso/eisnplot
2018 07 21 2018.552 0 0.0 14 23
http://www.spaceweather.com has spotted this sunspot too with the remark:
"A tiny sunspot is struggling to emerge at the circled location. If it succeeds, it would bring an end to a string of 24 spotless days. Credit: SDO/HMI"
Checking another parameter: GOES X-ray Flux
Consistent with reports of a possible new sunspot, solar activity has gradually increased from A1 to A2 flaring to A2 to A3 levels. Also the blue line at the bottom of the plot in the 0.5 to 4.0 A range have shown greater disturbances.
cf. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/goes-x-ray-flux
Belgium's Royal Observatory has issued their daily comment in which this new sunspot is not mentioned at all. However, this new sunspot is adjacent to the equatorial coronal hole, which is extensive in size reaching down to the southern polar coronal hole.
COMMENT: Solar activity is extremely low without any flaring activity
reported during last 24 hours. We do not expect any change of the activity
in the coming hours.Coronagraph images do not show signatures of the Earth directed CMEs, and
the solar protons are at the background level.Solar wind speed has increased and it presently amounts about 510 km/s. The
maximum solar wind speed (about 550 km/s), during last 24 hours was reached
at about 11:20 UT today. The interplanetary magnetic filed magnitude is
presently about 8 nT.The patchy but rather extended equatorial coronal hole (possibly even
connected with the southern polar coronal hole), has reached central
meridian early this morning. The associated fast solar wind is expected at
the Earth in the mid of the day on July 24. The geomagnetic conditions are
presently unsettled to quiet and we expect such a geomagnetic conditions to
persist in the coming hours.TODAY'S ESTIMATED ISN : 000, BASED ON 12 STATIONS.
UPDATE at 12:50 PM PDT (1950 UT): Below is a solar image of the two large coronal holes. At the tip of the equatorial coronal hole is a tiny sunspot that appears to be fading away.