New huge Coronal Hole turns to face Earth as Sunspot count has reached a 7 year low as Solar Minimum approaches

SDO

Spaceweather.com reports the sunspot count has reached a 7 year low
The face of the sun has been blank (no sunspots) for 13 consecutive days.
The last time this happened was April of 2010, near the end of a deep Solar Minimum.
The current stretch of blank suns heralds a new Solar Minimum expected to arrive in 2019-2020.
Is space weather coming to an end?
On the contrary.
The latest in a series of large coronal holes has turned to face the Earth. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is tracking the opening, which researchers call a "coronal hole" (CH):
The large coronal hole in the sun's atmosphere and has swung into geoeffective position.
Solar wind flowing from the hole is expected to strike our planet's magnetic field and spark G1- to G2-class geomagnetic storms later on in the week.
Regular visitors to The Big Wobble will be aware coronal holes are the main earthquake factor.
The dark patches sometimes covering more than half the entire face of the Sun indicate that the interplanetary magnetic field connecting Earth to our Sun will be experiencing huge fluctuations of energy, these huge fluctuations increase then decrease pressure on our planet causing major quakes and often volcanic activity.
The speed of these fluctuations or solar wind is incredible sometimes reaching speeds of almost 1,000 km/second

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