Solar Max In The Sun's Southern Hemisphere:

At the end of October, Turkish astronomer Senol Sanli made a composite image of the month's sunspots, all 31 days. Take a look. Notice anything?

There are more sunspots in the sun's southern hemisphere--more than three times as many according to the Solar Influences and Data Analysis Center. This is the 4th month in a row the southern hemisphere has significantly outperformed the north.

What's going on? Solar physicists have long known that the two hemispheres of the sun don't always operate in sync. Solar Max in the north can be offset from Solar Max in the south by as much as two years--a delay known as the "Gnevyshev gap." The assymetry is illustrated in this graph of hemispheric sunspot numbers from the last 6 solar cycles:

Is the sun's southern hemisphere experiencing its Solar Max right now? Maybe. We won't know for sure until years from now when we can look back and see the final shape of Solar Cycle 25.

Source: https://www.spaceweather.com/